The First Amendment » (3rd Edition)

Farber (U. of Minnesota Law School) presents an introduction to the main lines of legal doctrine developed out of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, as well as key points of doctrinal contention. Historical background receives some minor attention, but most of the text is devoted to doctrinal analysis. The bulk of the material concerns speech issues, although a couple of chapters deal with the First Amendment's pronouncements on freedom of religion. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Paul E. Parker

True to his word, Daniel Farber has written a doctrinal text on First Amendment law, whose "goals are description and analysis" Although the book is a doctrinal presentation, Farber's essential point, familiar to students of the First Amendment (or to the novice, looking at the table of contents), is that to understand the Court's First Amendment jurisprudence is to understand the patchwork of rulings and tests that "resemble a complicated legal code rather than a unitary set of principles."

Additionally, Farber cogently asserts that some historically unsettled areas are today so settled as to be taken for granted. Ultimately, then, we have a text useable in teaching, but a narrow kind of teaching. There is a lack of interchange within the text, as matters discussed in different chapters are not consistently related to each other, and a lack of interchange with other texts. I am skeptical whether readers other than those assigned to read it, law students or reviewers, will wade through the tedium of rules that is First Amendment law.