Constitutional Law: National Power and Federalism (Examples & Explanations Series)

Rating:
Summary: Helpful, not a lifesaver
Review: I bought this book because I found the E & E Civil Procedure book extremely helpful. This one was good, but didn't have as many concrete problems as the civ pro book did. Because I needed help drawing out doctrine (my course was policy-heavy), I would have liked more of that. However, the summaries of various issues in Con Law were clear and concise, and it did a nice job of placing various cases within the different strands of the law and explaining what they had accomplished.

Also, the book is organized very differently from how my professor taught it - if you're covering separation of powers as its own unit later in the course, you might have the same problem, because the authors put some separation of powers stuff (but not all) in the section on Justiciability. You just have to kind of skip around it, but the section headings are clear, so it should be easy to recognize when you've fallen into uncovered material.

Rating:
Summary: Great supplemental reading for Con Law.
Review: This book has helped me understand and make sense of [sometimes] the convoluted Constitutional Law cases. Con Law can be quite intimidating for first year students [like many things on campus] and having only the casebook does not help.

The "Examples and Explanations" series helped me gain another perspective on the ideas from the casebook; also, the problems and explanations after and during each chapter actually engage the reader in applying the material into problems, hoping the exam question will be similar (year, right!).

Rating:
Summary: A wise choice
Review: This study aide was extremely helpful for exam review. This book provides the student who has kept up in class with a succinct overview of the topic. When you are reading case after case during the semester, it is easy to miss the overall course ideology, unless you have a good professor who will tie it all together for you. This book is good at providing the appropriate level of detail to the student for a comprehensive review of the critical points in Con Law I.