MixedThe Wall Street JournalConstitutional forms have given way to congressional polarization, executive imperialism and judicial improvisation, and voters left and right have concluded that 'the system is rigged.' Mr. Sitaraman plausibly insists that these phenomena are connected. Unfortunately, he fails to pursue the thought with the rigor it deserves ... The author offers a withering account of the plutocracy of the Gilded Age, followed by a conventional account of the Populist, Progressive, and New Deal heroes who sought to bring corporations to heel ... Mr. Sitaraman complements this lamentably polemical account with a list of familiar and ill-conceived reform ideas ... That said, his book provides a much-needed reminder: For all our legendary good luck, nothing ordains that all our constitutional stories will have a happy ending.
