An international collection of the world's most distinguished historians and political philosophers takes a fresh look at the political, legal, and philosophical contributions of Thomas Jefferson. The insightful essays analyze and illuminate the sophisticated layers of the political and legal thought of America's most influential and intellectually complex Founder. With contributors that include Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Morton Frisch, Paul Rahe, James Stoner, Robert K. Faulkner, John Zvesper, Howard Temperly, Robert A. Rutland, Raoul Berger, Colin Bonwick, Peter Parish, Jeffrey Sedgwick, J. R. Pole, Richard King, and Jean M. Yarborough, this is essential reading for historians and political philosophers.

For much of its history, the interpretation of the United States Constitution presupposed judges seeking the meaning of the text and the original intentions behind that text, a process that was deemed by Chief Justice John Marshall to be 'the most sacred rule of interpretation'. Since the end of the nineteenth century, a radically new understanding has developed in which the moral intuition of the judges is allowed to supplant the Constitution's original meaning as the foundation of interpretation. The Founders' Constitution of fixed and permanent meaning has been replaced by the idea of a 'living' or evolving constitution. Gary L. McDowell refutes this new understanding, recovering the theoretical grounds of the original Constitution as understood by those who framed and ratified it. It was, he argues, the intention of the Founders that the judiciary must be bound by the original meaning of the Constitution when interpreting it.

For much of its history, the interpretation of the United States Constitution presupposed judges seeking the meaning of the text and the original intentions behind that text, a process that was deemed by Chief Justice John Marshall to be 'the most sacred rule of interpretation'. Since the end of the nineteenth century, a radically new understanding has developed in which the moral intuition of the judges is allowed to supplant the Constitution's original meaning as the foundation of interpretation. The Founders' Constitution of fixed and permanent meaning has been replaced by the idea of a 'living' or evolving constitution. Gary L. McDowell refutes this new understanding, recovering the theoretical grounds of the original Constitution as understood by those who framed and ratified it. It was, he argues, the intention of the Founders that the judiciary must be bound by the original meaning of the Constitution when interpreting it.

This volume about juvenile delinquency in the United States and United Kingdom includes a foreword, nine chapters organized in three parts, and an afterword. Chapters 1 and 2 in Part I describe juvenile delinquency in both countries and the urgency of the current crisis. Chapters 3 to 6 in Part II deal with the two nations' juvenile justice systems, focusing on structural and ideological obstacles preventing reform. Presented in the final chapters in Part III are suggestions for reform in school, and juvenile justice setting that recognize the importance of character in causing delinquency.

Like a man who might go fishing as a diversion only to catch somethingextraordinary, maybe Gary L. McDowell didn't set out to write a big fat hymnto the human condition. But he did. The brilliant American Amen wrestles, body and spirit, with our belligerent world. It's a tensile poetic line McDowellcasts, in the many senses of the word: this poetry throws, sheds, exhales, reckons, sows, shapes, bestows. Part gristle, part faith, American Amen is abeautiful book, reeling in "something baffling about adulthood" as it glintsand flexes, alive, into the air.- Amy NewmanGary L. McDowell's poems shimmer with masterful variety-long sinuoussequences and short intensifying lyrics; personal narratives and prayers tosteel, wheat, and corn; family poems, of a father and of a son, yet poemscapable of rich otherness: "I found my history in the tiny / bones of ahummingbird." For all this productive range, the center of McDowell'simpressive first book, American Amen, is love, whose abiding act is acceptance.That's what the word amen means-whether in Jewish, Muslim, or Christianusage-and that's the deepest gift among the many gifts of these poems. Ashe writes himself, out of loss and gain, out of terror and awe, after all, "incase of fire, any god will do."- David BakerIn this age of new-didacticism a reader of poetry might sometimes wish toask poetry to delight first, then worry about instructing. Gary L. McDowell'sAmerican Amen does just that, line by gravid line, one dazzling momentafter another, in poems that are wholly true. A romance of place andperson continually undergoes scrutiny and comes out from disillusionmentto wonder, manifold mysteries, and joy-honest, stunned, self-forgetfulglimpses of the illimitable. An unsettling yet steadfast vision obtains, of origin, longing, creation, and departure-all revealed as inevitable yetunpredictable forces of grace. This is an astonishing collection, a poetry ofresoundingly human and natural marvels.- William OlsenAmerican Amen is a moving and remarkably mature debut. In it one finds aMidwestern Robert Hass-impeccably tuned to birdsong, the whisperingtrees, the erotic and broken heartbeat of the every day. The collectionwrestles the unbeatable ghosts of family and manhood; what kind of manam I, these poems ask, What does love mean? Hiking through a forest offamilial apparitions the poems yearn to understand fathers and grandfathers.In gutting a fish they can find the sublime. Gary L. McDowell's bigshoulderedpoems house both self-doubt and a bottomless well of kindness.American Amen wondrously pushes into the dark with "its heart in its fists."- Alex Lemon

A detailed analysis of a child-abuse case reveals all of the aspects of the judicial system, including the limits of justice, and makes an argument for judicial restraint.