"Urban conflagrations, such as the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 and the Great Boston Fire the following year, terrorized the citizens of nineteenth-century American cities. However, urban rebirth in the aftermath of great fires offered a chance to shape the future. Ultimately residents and planners created sweeping changes in the methods of constructing buildings, planning city streets, engineering water distribution systems, underwriting fire insurance,...

Amar's landmark work invites citizens to a deeper understanding of their Bill of Rights and will set the basic terms of debate about it for modern lawyers, jurists, and historians for years to come. In our continuing battles over freedom of religion and expression, arms bearing, privacy, and state's rights, Amar concludes, we must hearken to both the Founding Fathers who created the Bill and their sons and daughters who reconstructed it.