Customer Reviews

A Cartoon Guide to the Constitution of the United States (COS)

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3 star:		(1)
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The entire text of the constitution is included in this book with a serious cartoon narrative explaining both what is written and the historical reasons each portion of text was put into the constitution and its amendments. That history (including how we almost had a President Burr in 1800 and a President Tilden in 1876) helps making the constitution come alive. This is a good book both for people of all ages that need to learn about the constitution and for people who enjoy reading about a serious subject written with a light-hearted perspective.

If only all learning were like this! This wonderful little book deserves to be a classic. If you're looking to learn about the Constitution or just brush up on it, "Cartoon Guide" is a hilarious and painless way to do it. (Or if you just want to have some fun.) The text is well-written and humorous, and the illustrations are uproarious. I believe the book would be appropriate as a text or at least a supplement for high school courses and basic college courses; if I were choosing a book on the Constitution for such a course, this would certainly be it.

This IS an excellent, clever and VERY informative book-- touching not only on some of the lesser known events leading up to the Constitutional Convention, but on the ways (considering events that the Founding Fathers could NEVER have envisioned) the enduring Constitution has been called upon in those past 3 centuries, to right and redress wrongs.

However, although the subject matter is unique and informative, and the artwork is clever, the artist's penmanship is spiky, hard to read at any type of measured pace, and it gave me headache upon headache to read this book through. A revised edition with Actual Typeface in those "balloons" would be enormously helpful.

I bought and read this book all the way back in 1983.
At the time I was most struck by its willingness to allege
that various Supreme Court decisions had been outrageous
MISinterpretations of the constitution. One normally associates
that view point with conservative "originalist" or "strict
construction" doctrine, but this book made -- a decade or
two ahead of its time, apparently -- that it was conservatives
who were ignoring the 9th amendment (rights retained by the
people despite not being enumerated in the constitution) and
the privileges&immunities clause. Today, Daniel Farber is
making the same case in "Retained by the People", and
Randy Barnett has come close in "Restoring the Lost Constitution".
Lurio was ahead of the both and far more accessible.