Choice Reviews Eloquence and Reason: "Highly Recommended"

M.W. Bowers of the Political Science Department at University of Nevada, Las Vegas reviews Eloquence and Reason for Choice (July 2009):

Tsai (law, American) posits the goal of this work as employing the First Amendment as a "case study to illustrate that liberty is not an end state but a state of mind achieved through the formation of a common language and a set of organizing beliefs."  The author achieves his goal admirably in a densely packed book utilizing political theory, history, law, political science, philosophy, and historical examples including religious conservatives' response to the Warren Court on church and state and the activities of the Civil Rights Movement.  Perhaps most noteworthy, however, is Tsai's rejection of the translation model of judicial review, "in which a jurist's primary duty is to discern an earlier generation's original intentions or expectations" in favor of a facilitation model, which "calls for attention to the social plausibility of readings of text," and the evidence he provides in favor of that position. . . . Highly recommended.