Next spring semester, I will be teaching a First Amendment class. So I request advice from commenters about what textbooks they liked, or did not like, and why.
For the recommendations, please ignore entirely the textbook’s treatment of the religion clauses. Denver University has a separate class on them, so my class will be entirely on Speech, Press, Petition, Assembly, and Association.
Personally, I prefer textbooks which put their subject in historical context and order, which is one of the reasons I use Randy Barnett’s textbook for Con Law I and Con Law II. Like Barnett, I also prefer textbooks which pay attention to “the Constitution outside the courts,” and not just to Supreme Court cases.
Finally, I like to show students how to use one part of the Constitution to help understand another part. So I would be particularly interested in textbooks that highlight the First Amendment’s interplay with the Copyright clause, the Fourteenth Amendment, and so on. I will of course give careful study to Eugene Volokh, The First Amendment and Related Statutes, Problems, Cases and Policy Arguments (4th ed.).