While President Bush spent the month of August at his Crawford,
Texas ranch, various newspaper accounts mused over the list of
books that were part of the President's summer reading. Several
times during Mr. Bush's summer sojourn, he spoke to Americans and
Iraqis alike regarding the ongoing debate and negotiations over the
new Iraqi constitution. One wishes that the President had received
an advance copy of Akhil Reed Amar's AMERICA'S CONSTITUTION to
include on his summer reading list. At this critical time for the
fledgling nation of Iraq, as well as for American citizens, the
President would have been well served to consider the message of
this exhaustive clause-by-clause analysis of one of the most
important documents of world history. Indeed, as the Iraqis
struggle with the creation of their constitution, the President
might consider sending a copy of AMERICA'S CONSTITUTION to each
member of the Iraqi Parliament.  


Since 1985, Professor Amar has served as a constitutional law
scholar on the faculty of Yale Law School. In 1998 he published THE
BILL OF RIGHTS: Creation and Reconstruction, an important and
provocative contribution to constitutional doctrine and
interpretation. AMERICA'S CONSTITUTION continues the discussion
that has come to the fore in American jurisprudential debate ---
what does the constitution say and how should we interpret its
meaning in contemporary society? As our nation prepares to add two
new justices to the Supreme Court, the magnitude of this debate and
its impact on our nation's future cannot be underestimated by any
citizen.


Not counting amendments, the U.S. Constitution has 4,400 words. It
is the oldest and shortest constitution in the world. Considering
that brevity, it may be difficult for readers to contemplate nearly
500 pages of line-by-line analysis of each provision of the
Constitution. But Professor Amar's thorough and detailed analysis
of the Constitution is so well-written and true to a fundamental
theoretical argument that readers will be hard pressed to find any
superfluous writing in this remarkable work of legal and historical
scholarship.


Space limitations make a detailed discussion of Amar's
constitutional theology (his first chapter is titled "In the
Beginning") impossible. The overriding argument of AMERICA'S
CONSTITUTION is that certain key themes representing basic
commitments of the founding fathers tie the Constitution together.
Before discussing that argument it is crucial to consider Amar's
discussion of important lessons gleaned from the drafting and
ratification of the Constitution. That discussion is significant
because of the important lessons it provides to the modern world
where new nations such as Iraq struggle to write a document to
provide for the growth of a fledgling nation.


Regardless of one's political views on the war in Iraq, only
imprudent individuals would view the ongoing drafting of a
Constitution for that nation without reference to historical
context. Professor Amar cogently provides that context for the
Constitution of 1787 and in so doing offers important lessons for
the current struggle to create a government in Iraq. In 1787 the
drafters of our Constitution had little actual experience in
democracy. There were few such governments in the world. Indeed,
democratic principles filtered up from the various individual
states of the union whose democratic experience was very limited.
Anyone knowledgeable in Middle Eastern history cannot deny that
Iraqis have very little in the way of a democratic template to
assist them in creating a constitution.


Equally significant to the drafting of the Constitution were the
circumstances behind the birth of the American nation. The
Declaration of Independence established the right of people to
escape the evils of tyrannical rule. By 1787 the nation had existed
for some years under the Articles of Confederation. The new
Constitution required the drafters to address the right of citizens
to change their form of government in a peaceful fashion. By that
process the Constitution gave citizens of the United States far
more democracy than any nation had ever experienced. Today in Iraq,
a nation long governed by tyranny has seen its government removed
not by revolution but by an outside force. How a new nation is born
will have substantial influence in how it chooses to govern itself.
As the world views the Iraqi struggle with constitutional
democracy, these concerns cannot be ignored.


AMERICA'S CONSTITUTION was not written as a primer on how Iraq
should draft a constitution. Professor Amar certainly did not
intend that his book would be limited to offering insight into the
difficulties Iraqis face in drafting a constitution. While that
historical insight is significant, equally noteworthy is what
AMERICA'S CONSTITUTION offers readers by way of discussion about
America's past, present and future in the area of constitutional
jurisprudence.


As America prepares to welcome two new Justices to the Supreme
Court, the ongoing debate over constitutional interpretation grows
more strident. Should the original intent of the founders guide
constitutional interpretation, or is the Constitution a living
document that was intended to confront contemporary issues based
upon more contemporary legal doctrine? Professor Amar finds merit
in both arguments but also believes that there is still much room
in the Constitution for interpretation between the lines that the
founding fathers deliberately kept sparse.


As he wrote AMERICA'S CONSTITUTION, Amar had no way of knowing how
important his book would be to contemporary issues in the world and
in our nation. Perhaps that is the greatest tribute one can pay to
this extraordinary work. Even without the current effort in Iraq to
create a constitution and the current vacancies on our Supreme
Court, this would be an important book. Contemporary events make it
a book that demands to be read in order to promote intelligent
discussion of critical issues for our nation and the world.