The Bill Of Rights: Creation and Reconstruction.

• Author: Moore, Ces
• Position: Books

THE BILL OF RIGHTS: Creation and Reconstruction Author: Akhil Reed Amar Published by: Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 1998.

The three books reviewed here provide a useful overview of current American revisionist literature. Implicitly, each book approaches a different topic using similar methods of historical interpretation. Broadly, and more explicitly, the triptych has the aim of re-interpreting the American perspective on distinctive subject matter. Each book challenges the evolution and creation of conventional wisdom with the aim of reevaluating the American perspective using strong case studies.

The most interesting, and perhaps the most engaging, of the three books, Reconstructing America: The Symbol of America in Modern Thought, traces the development of popular images and representations of America with the aim of uncovering an America discourse. The enticing topic of the book and the analysis of the interaction between popular culture, political culture and symbolism inform the reader of the erroneous representation of America discourse from inside and outside, history, politics, public opinion and culture. However, this does not mean that the re-interpretation of America's representation provides a clear need either to change the current symbolic position of America or to revise contemporary histories and narratives. The book moves swiftly through an investigation into America represented as a degenerate into reflections of America through globalisation, multiculturalism, racialism, culminating in America as a postmodern symbol. The book does contain illuminating insights into previously conventional interpretations of America and America discourse. And, despite this attempt to contextualise the role and symbol of America, much of the argument is introspective and, as a result, difficult for the reader to access.

Secondly, FDR and the Creation of the U.N. attempts to revise and reinterpret the historical roots of the creation and evolution of the United Nations. Obviously, both Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt as American presidents were fundamental in establishing the foundations for the current United Nations. Accordingly, the book begins by establishing the impact of Woodrow Wilson on the League of Nations. The book moves historically through this evolution in sixteen clear chapters and has a useful historical background for scholars of international relations. Indeed, much of this chronologically based book...