LOOSE SALLIES is a new collection of spirited essays for a wide audience from an
experienced, cultivated writer who also happens to be a full-time practicing lawyer.
In this stimulating and provocative volume, Daniel J. Kornstein writes with grace
and precision in an engaging voice. He turns his searching eye and fluent pen to a
number of topics of keen interest to us all.
The first group of extraordinary essays contains Kornstein's original thoughts
on the drafting of the U.S. Constitution. In vivid and witty prose, he recreates the
1787 Constitutional Convention, meditating on how much it is relevant to us today.
Kornstein asks questions about whether we really have a written or an unwritten
Constitution. He examines changing public attitudes toward the Constitution.
Next Kornstein explores the most treasured part of our Constitution: our
precious civil liberties. He gives us a sophisticated, insightful and innovative analysis
of freedom of speech, religious liberty and privacy. He revisits some of Supreme
Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes's greatest judicial opinions and explains their
current relevance.
From there, the author irresistibly describes some interesting personalities
and their lives. We learn from Kornstein about legal giants Hugo Black and Felix
Frankfurter. Kornstein then gives us a rare glimpse of conservative icon William F.
Buckley, Jr. as an expert witness in a controversial case. The author reviews the late
Christopher Hitchens's sharp criticism of Justice Holmes's free speech opinions.
The final section is an engrossing miscellany of essays on topics as varied as:
the similarities between politics and litigation, whether private schools should be
abolished, Bill Clinton and the draft, anti-Semitism in New York and London, and
the link between Steve Jobs and Ayn Rand.
All in all, Loose Sallies is a virtuoso performance, a tour de force, by one
of our finest essayists. Outstanding and valuable, Loose Sallies is an endlessly
instructive pleasure.
