Red, White, and Blue: A Critical Analysis of Constitutional Law

by Mark V. Tushnet

The first paperback edition of a classic of American constitutional theory. The book is divided into two parts. In Part I Professor Tushnet appraises the five major competing grand theories of constitutional law and interpretation and argues that none of them satisfy their own requirements for coherence and judicial constraint. In Part II the author offers a descriptive sociology of constitutional doctrine and raises critical questions as to whether a grand theory is necessary, is it possible to construct a coherent, useful grand theory, and is construction of an uncontroversial grand theory possible?

Professor Tushnet’s new Afterword is organized in parallel fashion to the original text. Part I offers a new survey of the contemporary terrain of constitutional interpretation. Part II provides an extended discussion of the most prominent of contemporary efforts to provide an external analysis of constitutional law, the idea of regime politics. This includes discussion of major court decisions, including Bush v. Gore and Citizens United.

384 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

A specialist in constitutional law and theory, including comparative constitutional law, Mark Victor Tushnet is William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law, Emeritus at Harvard Lew School. Tushnet graduated from Harvard College and Yale Law School and served as a law clerk to Justice Thurgood Marshall. His research includes studies of constitutional review in the United States and around the world, and the creation of other "institutions for protecting constitutional democracy." He also writes in the area of legal and particularly constitutional history, with works on the development of civil rights law in the United States and a history of the Supreme Court in the 1930s.