In two weeks and two days (who’s counting?), I will head out for Warsaw, Poland, for a bicycle trip through Eastern Europe! The journey has several elements. First, of course, is the adventure of the ride, which will take us from Warsaw to Odessa on the Black Sea. Because we’re going through Budapest, it’s about…

Alert Reader Ron Brown of Illinois brought to my attention a recent article by Jack Rakove (a distinguished legal historian at Stanford University, and my client in the Guantanamo case) on Heller v. District of Columbia. The decision, as you all likely know, is a landmark finding that the Second Amendment created a personal right…

The Mountain Road is a remarkably prescient, sensitive, and insightful look at American military intervention in Asia. The 1960 movie, starring James Stewart, follows a demolition team that is trying to cover the retreat of the Chinese Nationalist Army in World War II, by blowing up the mountain road of the title. I caught it…

In a little over three weeks, I’ll be setting off on a trip through Eastern Europe, and through history. Our oldest son, Matt, and I will meet in Warsaw with our bicycles. We will set off to my grandfather’s home town, Czyzew-Osada, to see what we can see. Only in the last week, I have…

This week’s big Supreme Court rulings demand some attention, and did some remarkable things: — Interpreting the Second Amendment for the first time in 1939, the Justices voted 5-4 that the provision creates a personal right to own guns, though that right may be regulated for common safety. District of Columbia v. Heller. — Interpreting…

Well, I missed it by three days, too. June 21 is the anniversary of the ratification of the Constitution! On that date in 1788, the New Hamphshire Convention ratified the new national charter, becoming the ninth state to do so. Under the Constitution’s own terms, it went into effect with ratification by nine of the…

In preparation for a panel I’m doing tomorrow at the First Amendment Center at the Newseum here in Washington, I just read Liberty’s Blueprint: How Madison and Jefferson Wrote the Federalist Papers, Defined the Constitution, and Made Democracy Safe for the World, by Michael Meyerson. It’s a good book that offers an insightful view take…

On Saturday, Washington Independent Writers gave its first annual Washington Writing Prize to . . . The Summer of 1787, by moi. They were nice enough to say that the book creates “a bright and colorful rendering of the extraordinary convention that created the American Constitution,” adding that this “unusually readable account… allows us to…

The Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in Boumediene v. Bush recognizing the right of detainees in Guantanamo to press habeas corpus petitions to their continued detention, is a huge moment in the nation’s constitutional and political life. FULL DISCLOSURE: I submitted, with assistance from colleagues at Ropes & Gray, a brief amicus curiae on behalf of…

Paul Krugman in the New York Times has a fascinating/appalling treatment of the future of the book. As in, not much of a future. His message, that the Kindle e-book-reader is good, confirms a report I recently received from a friend from college. What does this mean economically for writers? Nothing good. At least not…