The Law of the Land: A Grand Tour of Our Constitutional Republic

Geography takes center stage in this deep dive into U.S. constitutional jurisprudence. The third installment of a continuing series from Yale law professor Amar, following America’s Constitution and America’s Unwritten Constitution, this ambitious treatise shows how landmarks in American constitutional history can be viewed as products of topography. Amar detects a “Midwestern twang” in Illinois-native Abraham Lincoln’s particular version of unionism. He also traces Supreme Court justice Hugo Black’s textualist reading of the Constitution to his Deep South roots. Amar suggests an unlikely but profound connection between our modern understanding of federalism and Camden, N.J. Though at times the book feels like the literary equivalent of eating one’s vegetables (“By the end of this chapter, you will know all that you need to know about these arcane 18th-century legal instruments”), the payoff for tackling the denser passages is a deeper understanding of topics rarely discussed in the detail they deserve. For example, Amar’s careful parsing of the Second Amendment will leave readers forever skeptical of super ficial sound bites on the issue. He amply proves that the varied American landscape provides an illuminating lens with which to view our legal system’s fundamental tenets. Agent: Glen Hartley, Writers Reps. (Apr.)