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Podcast: NBN Book of the Day
Episode: Jonathan Gienapp, "Against Constitutional Originalism: A Historical Critique" (Yale UP, 2024)
Description: The legal theory of constitutional originalism has attracted increasing attention in recent years as the US Supreme Court has tilted with the weight of justices who self-describe as originalists. In Against Constitutional Originalism: A Historical Critique (Yale UP, 2024), Jonathan Gienapp examines the theory and describes how it falls short of achieving the interpretive authority that it claims. Gienapp asserts that we need to reconstruct 18th century legal arguments as they were originally understood before judging them, while originalists reject historical understanding in favor of a more pliable textualist approach that allows them to impose their modern legal...