I just recently finished David Currie's Descent Into the Maelstrom, the fourth volume of his Constitution in Congress, which I adored even more than the first three. Like Steve Vladeck, though, I find myself distressed by the possibility that not enough people are reading these books.

It is difficult to explain to the friend who peers over one's shoulder or spies the spine in the library just why this is not an idiosyncratic pursuit (like so many of the other books I lug around L3). But to the degree that Jack Balkin and Sandy Levinson are right that law school teaches students the "canons" of constitutional law, I think a number of the major constitutional events of Congress ought to be part of the canon.

Now to some extent this is to my selfish advantage-- people think I know far more than I do because I've read Currie's treatments-- but a basic working knowledge of the Constitutional congressional law would surely increase the level of constitutional debate by an order of magnitude.

For years I did not listen to Mozart after I was assaulted by the perverse idea that Mozart does not exist, becayse when he is good he is Beethoven and when he is bad he is Haydn.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez-- Living to Tell The Tale