Book Review

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Book Review | The Journal of American History, 86.4 | The History Cooperative

Understanding State Constitutions. By G. Alan Tarr. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998. x, 247 pp. $35.00, isbn 0-691-01112-5.)

The study of state constitutions during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries attracted much scholarly interest. During the latter half of the twentieth century, such study has fallen into desuetude as state governments have appeared to recede in importance relative to the national government and as the length, detail, and flexibility of state constitutions have been seen as rendering them inferior to the United States Constitution. The one notable exception to that trend is among law professors, a number of whom have taken note in the last quarter century of a "new judicial federalism," in which state supreme courts have interpreted the civil liberties provisions in their state constitutions so as to provide a higher level of protection than is granted by federal constitutional guarantees. . . .

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