The Switch: Reinventing American Freedom with John Fabian Witt

UC Berkeley Graduate Council Lectures (Video)

John Witt explores the subject of how American constitutional law was “reinvented,” as he proposes, during the early twentieth century. Taking up a small cast of characters who self-consciously aimed to disrupt the ideological structures of American law, Witt tells a story of social experiment and constitutional transformation that explains our constitutional past and offers powerful, if sometimes troubling, implications for our constitutional future. Witt is the Allen H Duffy Class of 1960 Professor of Law at the Yale Law School. Professor Witt’s work has ranged widely over the history of American law from the founding era to the Cold War. His most recent book Lincoln’s Code: The Laws of War in American History (2012) was awarded the 2013 Bancroft Prize and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 30083]