I recently finished reading Pauline Maier’s marvelous book, Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787–1788. Maier, a historian at MIT, has written the first comprehensive narrative of the ratification of the U.S Constitution, from the Philadelphia convention, through each of the states (in order of deliberation) and the drafting and adoption of the first 10 amendments. It was made possible by the still incomplete Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution that now runs to 24 volumes, on which Maier based much of her research. The records of the ratification debates are notoriously incomplete but Maier is able to fill in many of the gaps with other sources.
Read Full Article »
