One of the greatest American historians recently remarked to me that it was difficult to staff undergraduate survey courses on the American founding because relatively few contemporary historians were interested in the subject, and those few generally wanted to consider it only from the narrow perspective of race or gender. It is thus perhaps not surprising that the best book on the subject in many years comes not from an academic historian but a law professor—Akhil Reed Amar of Yale University. In The Words That Made Us: America’s Constitutional Conversation 1760-1840, Amar offers a fresh look at the ideas that shaped the Revolution, constitutional framing, and early republic, arguing against old reductionists like Charles Beard, who claimed that the Constitution was a coup of elitists against democracy, and new reductionists like those behind the 1619 project, who now claim that the Revolution was in part an effort to preserve slavery. Instead, Amar sees our early history as propelled by debate about general government ideals, where concepts such as sovereignty evolved through argument and Americans’ lived experience.
Read Full Article »
