Court and the Constitution

Cox, a Harvard law professor who was special prosecutor during Watergate, here presents a lucid, authoritative history of the Constitution's role in American life. The document has served well, he writes, because its framers said ""enough but not too much,'' giving subsequent generations a continuity of principles that, nonetheless, could meet changing needs. Cox focuses on how the Supreme Court assumed and acted on the power to interpret the Constitution's often vague meaning throughout the stages of U.S. development. Once called upon primarily to settle constitutional issues involving the growth of a national economy, and later the rise of the welfare state, the Court since World War II has been the Constitution's ``voice'' in the protection of individual rights, he shows. General readers will appreciate Cox's ability to get to the heart of complex issues. BOMC and History Book Club selections. (August 27)