We the people; a history of the U.S Constitution
Title of the book: We the people; a history of the U.S Constitution Author: Jill Lepore
Publisher: Liveright
Publishing Date: 2025
ISBN: 978-1-63149-608-0
Summary:
Goodreads Choice AwardNominee for Readers' Favorite History & Biography (2025)
The U.S. Constitution is among the oldest constitutions in the world--and one of the most difficult to amend. At what cost? In this landmark, lavishly illustrated book, Harvard professor of history and law Jill Lepore argues that the philosophy of amendment is foundational to American constitutionalism. Challenging both originalism and the Supreme Court's monopoly on constitutional interpretation, Lepore argues that the framers never intended for the Constitution to be kept, like a butterfly, under glass, but instead expected that future generations would be forever tinkering with it, improving the machinery of government. In an account as radical as Charles Beard's An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States, Lepore offers a sweeping, lyrical, and democratic constitutional history, telling the stories of generations of Americans who have attempted everything from abolishing the Electoral College to guaranteeing environmental rights, hoping to mend America by amending its constitution.
(From goodreads)
Jill Lepore is the David Woods Kemper ’41 Professor of American History, Harvard College Professor, and chair of Harvard's History and Literature Program. She is also a staff writer at The New Yorker.
Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Award for the best non-fiction book on race, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; The Name of War (Knopf, 1998), winner of the Bancroft Prize, the Ralph Waldo Emerson Prize, and the Berkshire Prize and a finalist for the J. Anthony Lukas Award.
A co-founder of the magazine Common-place, Lepore’s essays and reviews have also appeared in the New York Times, the Times Literary Supplement, American Scholar, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, The Daily Beast, the Journal of American History and American Quarterly. Her research has been funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Pew Foundation, the Gilder Lehrman Institute, the Charles Warren Center, and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation. She has served as a consultant for the National Park Service and currently serves on the boards of the National Portrait Gallery and the Society of American Historians.
Jill lives in Cambridge,Massachusetts.
I am not a stranger to reading non-fiction history, but reading it was definitely a challenge and yet a necessary one because the author dares to ask the difficult questions of the 250 year old document that was left for guidance. I enjoyed getting to know the ins and outs of the constitution and how we got to the point we had. A lot of it was similar to the history book she wrote; THESE TRUTHS, especially in questioning the races and why we are at the point we are. There are a few things that I wished would have been included; namely the list of amendment articles and I also wished that the author would have gone into beyond the white and black binary of races, like how did constitution affect other races and religions? Unfortunately not much was focused outside of white and black binary. Why I think this book is an important read is because most of Americans take it for granted and may not realize the changes history went through to help us get to this point. Also, I think the author desires for the readers to question the words and poke ideas behind the document. Whether the reader is new to US history or old, I imagine this will be a delightful read full of questions, ideas and details about the oldest constitution in the world.
This was given for review
5 out of 5
(0: Stay away unless a masochist 1: Good for insomnia 2: Horrible but readable; 3: Readable and quickly forgettable, 4: Good, enjoyable 5: Buy it, keep it and never let it go.)
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