Ilya Shapiro, my friend and frequent co-author, reviewed The Heritage Guide to the Constitution in the Washington Free Beacon.
Here is the introduction:
There's a familiar lament among constitutionalists—one heard at law schools, in courtrooms, and across think tank hallways—that most Americans know next to nothing about the nation's founding document. Ask a random college graduate about the Emoluments Clause or the Compact Clause and you'll get a blank stare. Yet even among lawyers and judges, constitutional knowledge is often shallow, piecemeal, or warped by ideology.
What's been missing is a single, reliable, readable, and comprehensive reference work that explains what the Constitution actually says, what its words meant to those who wrote and ratified them, and how those meanings have been interpreted over time
Enter The Heritage Guide to the Constitution, now in its third edition and more indispensable than ever. Originally published in 2005, with an updated edition in 2014, this volume has long been a mainstay for those of us who care about constitutional text, structure, and history. But the new edition isn't just an update. It's a major expansion and refinement, reflecting nearly a decade of scholarship, jurisprudence, and debate.
If the Constitution is our civic scripture, this is the annotated commentary you want by your side—with a foreword by former attorney general Edwin Meese and an introduction by Justice Samuel Alito! Kudos to lead editors Josh Blackman and John Malcolm (both friends and professional collaborators of mine).
