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Library Journal Review

This excellent reference work details the manner in which the U.S. Supreme Court has interpreted the Constitution for almost 200 years. A professor of law at New York Law School, Lieberman has written other books on the Constitution. His present work is well organized, digesting about 2,370 Supreme Court cases into roughly 1200 concise, pertinent, and easily understood essays on constitutional issues. Arranged alphabetically by topic, each essay highlights both the constitutional background and the history of the issue, as well the latest legal developments. The book effectively illustrates the manner in which changing economic and social conditions can frequently alter the way the Supreme Court interprets an issue. For example, evolving attitudes of the Court are evidenced by the change from the separate-but-equal doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) to the separate-is-inherently-unequal doctrine of Brown v. Board of Education (1954). Also, changing political winds can sometimes result in the reversal of decisions once perceived to be definitive--witness the ongoing weakening of the seminal 1973 abortion decision, Roe v. Wade . Highly recommended for public libraries and the general reference collections of academic libraries.-- Philip Y. Blue, Dowling Coll. Lib., Oakdale, N.Y (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Booklist Review

Author of several books on constitutional law and professor at the New York Law School, Lieberman offers in this title an effective, new type of constitutional reference for the nonspecialist. In an alphabetic arrangement of more than 1,000 short essays, the work focuses on the constitutional nature of the topic under discussion, the Supreme Court's treatment of the issue, and the ruling's effect on subsequent interpretations of the Constitution. Several cases may be discussed in the same entry if they illustrate the evolution of the constitutional issue. Included are essays on topics considered by the Court, legal concepts, common terms with legal meanings, significant clauses of the Constitution, and major cases. A typical entry is Freedom of Religion, wherein Lieberman establishes the constitutional foundation of the issue, provides a historical narrative of how the Court has ruled on the issue, and reports on the latest developments. In doing so, he takes the reader from the First Amendment's free-exercise clause to a 1940 case against a proselytizing Jehovah's Witness to the 1990 Oregon peyote case--in three concise pages that maintain a tight focus on the constitutional nature of the issues and the Supreme Court's effects on everyday life. The book is a convenient reference tool; for example, Separation of Powers is treated in two succinct pages, with Truman's wartime seizure of the steel mills given as an illustration of executive-branch encroachment. The work's arrangement is efficient, and the book is easy to use. See references are filed in the main alphabet, see also references appear at the end of entries, and terms within the text of an essay that have their own entry are cross-referenced through the use of small capital letters. For example, in Separation of Powers, "Steel Seizure Case" is cross-referenced to the essay where the 1952 Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer case is discussed. The names of the Court's cases are entered in italics, and superscripted numbers are used to refer the reader to the book's "Table of Cases," where more than 2,000 Supreme Court decisions are listed, including those as recent as the 1991-92 term. "Table of Cases" lists the case name, citation to United States Reports, date, vote, justice writing the majority opinion, names of dissenting justices, and the number of pages in the decision. Lieberman avoids footnotes, and endnotes are used for occasional secondary comments, as well as for bibliographic citations to materials other than Supreme Court decisions. While a topical index is purposefully omitted, an assortment of other items has been added to make this work a coherent whole. Included are introductory essays on the nature of the Constitution, constitutional interpretation, and the Supreme Court's procedures of hearing and deciding cases, as well as instructions for using the book. The appendixes provide the text of the Constitution; a concordance to all significant words in the Constitution; biographical sketches of all Supreme Court justices, along with a time chart showing which justices served during each term of the Court; and a list of suggested further readings. Many good reference tools for the Supreme Court are available, for instance, The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States [RBB D 1 92]), as are textbooks and anthologies on the Constitution. However, no other convenient reference compilation aimed at general readers has the specific focus of The Evolving Constitution. It will not only be consulted for information on legal decisions and interpretations, but its treatment of everyday issues--from abortion to censorship and from hate speech to students' rights--make it an effective tool for students researching topics for speeches and papers. This very affordable and effective encyclopedic source has a place on the reference shelf of any high school, public, or academic library. (Reviewed Apr. 15, 1993)