"This collection of essays, edited by historians Gary Gerstle of the University of Cambridge and Joel Isaac of the University of Chicago, makes timely reading as America looks to repair its democracy from the constitutional ravages of the Trump era. This book is useful not just for gauging how far Trump may have strayed from the United States’ professed legal norms, but also for situating the past four years in a longer-term historical perspective. . . . richly rewarding."

Survival: Global Politics and Strategy

“States of Exception in American History offers a refined introduction to the problems of ‘emergency’ in liberal states. This volume is the first to combine theory and history in such a compelling fashion.”

Benjamin A. Coates, Wake Forest University

“Gerstle and Isaac have brought together an excellent collection. There is no doubt of the importance of examining how democracies face emergencies nor is there doubt about the quality of the examinations these contributors provide.”

Sanford Levinson, University of Texas

“After September 11, 2001, many reacquainted themselves with political discourses back to Rome that deployed but limited emergency authorities, while others reread twentieth-century German theorist Carl Schmitt, notorious for his claim that the power to rule in exceptional times shadows governance in ordinary ones. This rich and unprecedented collection recovers American traditions of engaging emergencies long before the last two decades dawned, Donald Trump came to power, and global pandemic struck. Assembling historical case studies and theoretical reflections, Gary Gerstle and Joel Isaac have achieved something intellectually superb and uncommonly cohesive. No one could deny its contemporary relevance; no one knows where new national emergencies are taking Americans next.”

Samuel Moyn, Yale University