The Bill of Rights in Modern America: Revised and Expanded

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.

David J. Bodenhamer is Professor of History and Executive Director of the Polis Center at Indiana University–Purdue University, Indianapolis. He is author or editor of several books and more than thirty book chapters and journal articles. He lives in Carmel, Indiana.

James W. Ely, Jr., is Milton R. Underwood Professor of Law and Professor of History at Vanderbilt University. He is author of The Guardian of Every Other Right: A Constitutional History of Property Rights and American Legal History: Cases and Materials, among other works. He lives in Nashville,Tennessee.