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An Offer We Must Refuse

From the October 2023 Print Edition

In his masterwork, Thus Spake Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche’s mythic hero carries a message—“God is dead!”—throughout the earth, in a parody of the Gospels, calling it his “gift” to mankind. The book begins with an encounter between Zarathustra and a holy man who lives . . . . Continue Reading »

Constitutional Freedom

From the February 2023 Print Edition

Vincent Phillip Muñoz (Phillip to his friends, among whom I count myself) is a rising star at Notre Dame, which is becoming a powerhouse of serious constitutional scholarship. This book is the culmination of a decade of Muñoz’s scholarship on the religion clauses of the First Amendment. Those . . . . Continue Reading »

2013 Supreme Court Roundup

From the October 2013 Print Edition

The United States Supreme Court has two personalities. In the vast majority of cases on its docket, those involving criminal law, business regulation, statutory interpretation, freedom of speech, procedure, jurisdiction, and other technical but important legal questions, the Supreme Court acts like . . . . Continue Reading »

The Book of Judges

From the October 2009 Print Edition

Law and Judicial Duty by Philip Hamburger Harvard, 686 pages, $49.95 Recent events have brought the ordinarily neglected subject of judicial duty to the front pages. On the campaign trail, Barack Obama told us that in choosing judges—and especially justices of the Supreme Court—he would . . . . Continue Reading »