Adam Winkler is a nationally recognized expert on American constitutional law. His most recent book We the Corporations: How American Businesses Won Their Civil Rights, was a finalist for the 2018 National Book Award for Nonfiction, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the American Bar Association's Silver Gavel Award, the California Book Award, and received the Scribes Book Award. The book chronicles the astonishing story of one of the most successful yet least well-known “civil rights movements” in American history. Uncovering the roots of Citizens United v. FEC, Winkler shows how that controversial Supreme Court decision was the capstone of a two-hundred-year struggle over corporate personhood and constitutional protections for business. The book brings to life the legendary lawyers and justices involved in the dramatic yet often overlooked cases that extended our most fundamental rights to corporations—Daniel Webster, Louis Brandeis, Stephen Field, and even Thurgood Marshall—and reveals how the nation’s most powerful companies transformed the Constitution into a bulwark against the regulation of big business and a tool to serve the ends of capital. On We the Corporations, Zephyr Teachout in a New York Times Sunday cover book review said “Winkler’s chief contribution is to show how corporations have been some of the most important innovators in American law, shaping it for good and often ill.” Another review by Vox held “it is deeply shocking that We the Corporations is not boring” and United States Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer was quoted as saying "it is a good book."
Winkler's writing on the right to bear arms, which is notable for nuanced position—recognizing both the individual right to possess firearms and the legitimacy of effective gun control—has been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court and numerous lower courts. His book Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America details the importance of the right to bear arms throughout American history, while also showing how that right has been balanced with laws to enhance gun safety since the founding era. The New Yorker called the book "remarkably nuanced" and the Wall Street Journal called it "an engaging and provocative legal drama … and a fascinating survey of the misunderstood history of guns and gun control in America.” Gunfight was later the subject of question on the American game show Jeopardy!
Winkler has also written extensively on legal history topics including the origins of campaign finance law, the women's suffrage movement,[16] the regulation of political parties. He has also done quantitative research on constitutional law issues including a study that disproved the well accepted legal maxim that strict scrutiny is "'strict' in theory, but fatal in fact." He found that federalism was a hidden factor in free speech jurisprudence, with nearly 56% of federal laws burdening core speech rights upheld, compared to 23% of state laws and only 3% of local laws. Along with Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Leonard Levy and UCLA School of Law professor Kenneth Karst, Winkler edited the six-volume Encyclopedia of the American Constitution.
Adam Winkler is a nationally recognized expert on American constitutional law. His most recent book We the Corporations: How American Businesses Won Their Civil Rights, was a finalist for the 2018 National Book Award for Nonfiction, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the American Bar Association's Silver Gavel Award, the California Book Award, and received the Scribes Book Award. The book chronicles the astonishing story of one of the most successful yet least well-known “civil rights movements” in American history. Uncovering the roots of Citizens United v. FEC, Winkler shows how that controversial Supreme Court decision was the capstone of a two-hundred-year struggle over corporate personhood and constitutional protections for business. The book brings to life the legendary lawyers and justices involved in the dramatic yet often overlooked cases that extended our most fundamental rights to corporations—Daniel Webster, Louis Brandeis, Stephen Field, and even Thurgood Marshall—and reveals how the nation’s most powerful companies transformed the Constitution into a bulwark against the regulation of big business and a tool to serve the ends of capital. On We the Corporations, Zephyr Teachout in a New York Times Sunday cover book review said “Winkler’s chief contribution is to show how corporations have been some of the most important innovators in American law, shaping it for good and often ill.” Another review by Vox held “it is deeply shocking that We the Corporations is not boring” and United States Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer was quoted as saying "it is a good book."
Winkler's writing on the right to bear arms, which is notable for nuanced position—recognizing both the individual right to possess firearms and the legitimacy of effective gun control—has been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court and numerous lower courts. His book Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America details the importance of the right to bear arms throughout American history, while also showing how that right has been balanced with laws to enhance gun safety since the founding era. The New Yorker called the book "remarkably nuanced" and the Wall Street Journal called it "an engaging and provocative legal drama … and a fascinating survey of the misunderstood history of guns and gun control in America.” Gunfight was later the subject of question on the American game show Jeopardy!
Winkler has also written extensively on legal history topics including the origins of campaign finance law, the women's suffrage movement,[16] the regulation of political parties. He has also done quantitative research on constitutional law issues including a study that disproved the well accepted legal maxim that strict scrutiny is "'strict' in theory, but fatal in fact." He found that federalism was a hidden factor in free speech jurisprudence, with nearly 56% of federal laws burdening core speech rights upheld, compared to 23% of state laws and only 3% of local laws. Along with Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Leonard Levy and UCLA School of Law professor Kenneth Karst, Winkler edited the six-volume Encyclopedia of the American Constitution.