""The Longest Night provides a comprehensive and insightful look at our country's most fascinating election. The contributions from political insiders are utterly absorbing. Sharply written and edited; an impressive collaboration."--Susan Estrich, author of "Sex and Power

"Arthur Jacobson and Michel Rosenfeld have provided a very important civic service. Their collection of commentaries on the disputed presidential election of 2000 brings all the confusion and frenzy of that event into clear intellectual focus. On one level it documents the most lively and informed reaction to the legal aftermath of the election. But it does more. It contains a range of erudite and well-reasoned interpretations, not just of the law and court decisions, but also of political institutions, the constitutional history, and the election itself."--Mary P Ryan, author of "Civic Wars: Democracy and Public Life in the American City during the Nineteenth Century

"The great strength of this book is its inclusion of international perspectives on the American presidential debacle of 2000. After reading the insights of commentators and scholars from France, Italy, Germany, and elsewhere, it becomes clear precisely why, like an aging Humpty-Dumpty, our patchwork set of elitist assumptions, idiosyncratic practices, and archaic democratic institutions came tumbling down in Florida. It is too late simply to put Humtpy-Dumpty back together again. "The Longest Night reminds us that the United States has much to learn from those countries that are boldly advandcing the future of democracy and leaving us in their dust."--Lani Guinier, coauthor of "The Miner's Canary: Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming Democracy

This selection of the major works of constitutional theory during the Weimar period reflects the reactions of legal scholars to a state in permanent crisis, a society in which all bets were off. Yet the Weimar Republic's brief experiment in constitutionalism laid the groundwork for the postwar Federal Republic, and today its lessons can be of use to states throughout the world. Weimar legal theory is a key to understanding the experience of nations turning from traditional, religious, or command-and-control forms of legitimation to the rule of law. Only two of these authors, Hans Kelsen and Carl Schmitt, have been published to any extent in English, but they and the others whose writings are translated here played key roles in the political and constitutional struggles of the Weimar Republic. Critical introductions to all the theorists and commentaries on their works have been provided by experts from Austria, Canada, Germany, and the United States. In their general introduction, the editors place the Weimar debate in the context of the history and politics of the Weimar Republic and the struggle for constitutionalism in Germany. This critical scrutiny of the Weimar jurisprudence of crisis offers an invaluable overview of the perils and promise of constitutional development in states that lack an entrenched tradition of constitutionalism.