The Second Amendment: A Biography

By Michael Waldman

Categories: History, Politics & Social Sciences

The Second Amendment: A Biography (2014) is a book by Michael Waldman, president of the Brennan Center for Justice. Waldman traces the amendment from its drafting and early militia context through the Supreme Court's District of Columbia v. Heller decision and the modern gun-rights debate. He shows how organized advocacy, especially after the 1970s, remade public understanding of what the text protects.

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• Fareed Zakaria: “My book of the week is Michael Waldman's "The Second Amendment: A Biography," a fascinating biography of one line, the one line that is at the heart of America's gun debate. Waldman makes us realize just how ambiguous and uncertain the second amendment's meaning has been for most of American history.”