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Book Review
| The Constitution in Wartime: Beyond Alarmism and Complacency. Ed. by Mark Tushnet. (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005. 261 pp. Cloth, $79.95, ISBN 0-8223-3456-9. Paper, $22.95, ISBN 0-8223-3468-2.)
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| In his introduction to this collection of essays, Mark Tushnet presents them as an alternative to the two dominant views of post-9/11 actions by the Bush administration: (a) "alarmists who see ... gross restrictions on" American civil liberties, and (b) "administration shills who see in such actions entirely reasonable ... accommodations ... to the new realities of national security" (p. 1). Arguing that neither of these positions contributes much to public understanding of the real constitutional issues raised since September 2001, he describes the essays as "reflections on what might be called [a] second generation of more temperate responses" to the Bush war on terrorism (pp. 1, 2). For the most part stimulating, and at the same time disquieting, they offer a number of intriguing insights that should lead one to be cautious in drawing generalizations about American constitutionalism in a time of armed conflict. Space permits only a brief discussion of several essays that captured the attention of this reviewer. |
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