The publisher's likely alternative, a hard-covered tome, would have priced the book out of possibility. The primary feature of this casebook, however, is what O'Brien includes that other books omit. What distinguishes this casebook is its treatment and incorporation of material on constitutional history and American politics. Few casebooks pay adequate attention to the forces of history and politics on the course of constitutional law. The idea is not without risk, however.
Students already know that law and politics are related.
A tendency to read cases in a contextual vacuum is not the problem that the instructor confronts, not with undergraduates, anyway. A casebook which sacrificed case space for constitutional history and politics might be fun to read, but it would cheat the students. O'Brien succeeds admirably in shaping his casebook to his purpose while avoiding this pitfall. If anything, he over-compensates in this regard. While O'Brien's inclusion of material more often found in judicial process texts may make the casebook less attractive to instructors who like to lecture on politics and history, a book which provides students with easy access to relevant information makes it possible to devote more class time to case analysis.