"This short but provocative volume...is a fitting testimony to the author's extraordinary, though tragically brief, career as a constitutional scholar, lawyer and teacher. In just a hundred and a half literate pages, we are treated to vintage Bickel insight into every major political issue of the decade, from the civil rights movement, to the Warren Court, through the frenetic university upheavals, and-inevitably-to Watergate...A tapestry woven by a master of subtle color and texture."-Alan M. Dershowitz, New York Times Book Review "Presents the core of [Bickel's] legal and political philosophy...In the five essays that compose this volume Bickel explores the relationship between morality and law, examining the role of the Constitution and Supreme Court in our political process, the nature of citizenship, the First Amendment, civil disobedience, and the moral authority of the intellectual...All will be stimulated by Bickel's thoughtful message." -Perspective "[Bickel] wrote with astonishing clarity. It takes no legal training to understand his thinking about the law. Nor does it take a willingness to agree with him. All that's required of the reader of this important 'little' book is a concern that rivals Bickel's about the future of American society." -Newsweek "An illuminating, often a moving book, with all of Professor Bickel's rare ability to bring law to life in vivid words."-Anthony Lewis Alexander M. Bickel, Sterling Professor of Law at Yale Law School, taught at Yale from 1956 until his death in 1974.

亚历山大·M.毕克尔（Alexander M. Bickle，1924-1974），美国著名宪法学家，生于罗马尼亚，后随父母迁至美国。先后毕业于纽约城市学院和哈佛大学法学院，曾任联邦高法院大法官法兰克福特的助理。1956年到耶鲁大学法学院任教，后为斯特林讲席法学教授。作为二十世纪重要的宪法学家之一，毕克尔以主张司法节制而闻名，他提出的“反多数难题”等经典命题至今为学人所称道。1962年首版的《小危险部门——政治法庭上的高法院》已成为美国宪法学经典著作。

徐斌 北京大学法学博士，北京大学政治学博士后。曾任《北大法律评论》主编，现为中国社会科学院法学研究所助理研究员。