The Bill of Rights in Modern America

xii, [2], 322 pages. Includes Introduction: The Bill of Rights; Part 1--The Myth and Reality of Rights; Part 2--Modern Rights in Controversy; Part 3--Rights Remembered, Revised, and Extended, The Right to Privacy; Second Wind for the State Bill of Rights. Also includes Notes, Bibliographic Essays, List of Contributors, Table of Cases, and Index. This book examines the significance of the Bill of Rights in modern society. Informed by a historical perspective, it focuses on contemporary issues and explores the current understanding of the Bill of Rights. Written for a general audience, the new edition has been thoroughly revised and expanded to address the impact of the Rehnquist years. James Ely is a renowned legal historian and property rights expert whose career accomplishments were recognized with both the Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Prize and the Owner Counsel of American Crystal Eagle Award in 2006. He is the author of several books that have received widespread critical acclaim from legal scholars and historians. He also served as an editor of both the second edition of the Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court, and the second edition of the Oxford Guide to Supreme Court Decisions. Professor Ely received the Tennessee History Book Award in 2002 for A History of the Tennessee Supreme Court. Between 1987 and 1999, he served as an associate editor of the American Journal of Legal History. This newly revised and expanded edition of The Bill of Rights in Modern America captures the contentious national debate about the nature and extent of our individual rights. Free speech, the separation of church and state, public safety and gun control, property rights, the rights of criminals and victims, the limits of law enforcement, the death penalty, affirmative action, the right to privacy, abortion, states' rights, the Bill of Rights has been evoked as the legal basis for every one of these issues. Twelve distinguished legal scholars discuss the history of and the current debates on these and other important rights issues in a book that is certain to stimulate thoughtful discussion among all citizens. Revised and Expanded Edition, First printing [stated].…