Recent Books on the Constitution
Each fall, I teach a seminar called Recent Books on the Constitution. I initially designed this course when I visited Georgetown in 2005. At that time, because I tend to read what relates directly to my current projects, I felt that I was not keeping up with the literature. By assigning recent books on the Constitution to read as part of my teaching, I would actually read them. This has really worked for me. I have now read a lot of books on the Constitution. The complete list of all the books I have assigned is below. Since 2005, I have assigned 105 books by 96 authors, with James Fleming, Sandy Levinson, Gerard Magliocca, Eric Segall, Dan Farber, Jonathan Gienapp, Philip Hamburger, Kim Roosevelt, and David Bernstein each making more than one appearance. Over the years, I assigned four books in manuscript before publication. In addition to my manuscript of the book I am now writing on libertarianism, here are the five "recent books on the Constitution" I am assigning for fall of 2026: Eric Claeys, Natural Property Rights (2025) Paul DeHaret, Uncovering the Constitution's Moral Design (2017) Richard Primus, The Oldest Constitutional Question: Enumeration and Federal Power (2025) Louis