-How can anyone claim to really understand our Constitution without knowing what these critical traditions had to say?-
--Michael Wallace, Professor of History, John Jay College.

-A real contribution to the subject of democracy and liberalism.-
--John Ehrenberg.

-Does a marvelous job of returning the Constitution to its proper sphere, the product of the rough and tumble of politics.-
-- Malcom M. Feely, author of Judicial Policy Making and the Modern State.

-The United States Constitution is a provocative book, much needed for overdue rethinking on...

Winner of the 2001 Gustavus Myers Program Book Award.

Contrary to simple textbook tales, the civil rights movement did not arise spontaneously in 1954 with the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision. The black struggle for civil rights can be traced back to the arrival of the first Africans, and to their work in the plantations, manufacturies, and homes of the Americas. Civil rights was thus born as labor history.

Civil Rights Since 1787 tells the story of that struggle in its full context, dividing the struggle into six major periods, from...