Book Presentation

In this book, Justice Stephen Breyer defines the term «active liberty» as a sharing of the nation’s sovereign authority with its citizens. Regarding the Constitution as a guide for the application of basic American principles to a living and changing society rather than as an arsenal of rigid legal means for binding and restricting it, Justice Breyer argues that the genius of the Constitution rests not in any static meaning it might have had in a world that is dead and gone, but in the adaptability of its great principles to cope with current problems.

Giving examples of this approach in the areas of free speech, privacy, affirmative action, statutory interpretation and administrative law, Justice Breyer states that courts should take greater account of the Constitution’s democratic nature when they interpret constitutional and statutory texts and he insists that the people can and must develop the experience necessary to govern their own affairs.

Stephen Breyer is an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court. He was nominated to the bench in 1994 by President Clinton and has acquired a reputation as a moderate jurist who believes our democratic system of government is best served by judicial restraint. Active Liberty is based on the Tanner Lectures on Human Values, which Breyer delivered at Harvard University in 2004.

This is a summary and not a critique or a review of the book. It does not offer judgment or opinion on the content of the book.  This summary may not be organized chapter-wise but is an overview of the main ideas, viewpoints and arguments from the book as a whole. This means that the organization of this summary is not a representation of the book.