The Reign of Law – Marbury vs Madison & the Origins of the American Political Imagination: Marbury vs. Madison and the Origins of the American Political Imagination - Hardcover

Kahn, Paul

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300066791 ISBN 13: 9780300066791

Publisher: Yale University Press, 1997

Synopsis

This is the first major work to apply to the rule of law the insights of modern cultural theory, ranging from Clifford Geertz to Michel Foucault. Starting from Thomas Paine's observation that "in America, law is king, " Paul Kahn asks: What are the elements of our belief in the rule of law? And what are the rhetorical techniques by which the courts maintain this belief? Kahn centers his exploration on the 1803 Supreme Court case of Marbury v. Madison - still the greatest of our constitutional cases. Kahn shows that Marbury is the judicial response to President Thomas Jefferson's belief that his election represented a Second American Revolution. Kahn uses the confrontation between president and Court to analyze the contrasting ways in which the revolutionary and the legal imaginations understand and give shape to political events. This contest continues today in the conflicting demands we make for a politics that preserves the past yet celebrates popular innovation.

About this title

Review:

"A brilliantly innovative and provocative work of pathfinding dimensions." -- Robert M. Ireland, Journal of the Early Republic

"Kahn is clearly a scholar of great intelligence and creativity." -- Scott D. Gerber, Journal of American History

"No scholar of the American constitution or American history can afford not to read this book - at least twice." -- Herbert A. Johnson, Law and History Review

Synopsis:

In this text, tha author argues that the rule of law is our deepest political and cultural myth. He draws on the insights of modern cultural theory to investigate why the rule of law exerts its attraction, and how its premises became figments in our collective political imagination.

About this edition

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0300066791
• ISBN 13: 9780300066791
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 314