We the People

It is impossible to imagine a more instructive text on a more timely subject by a more accomplished historian – Timothy SnyderAn arresting chronicle of Americans striving - if sometimes failing - to remake their republic – The EconomistWe the People contains compelling accounts of the constitutional convention … As ever, Lepore writes with literary flair, offering striking character studies, often of Americans who fought for change but are now largely forgotten – GuardianIn her characteristically lively history of the US Constitution, Lepore argues that the document’s capacity for amendment was not only central to the founders’ political thinking but essential to its ratification … Lepore’s passionate denunciation of this theory of constitutional interpretation paints it as one of the “stranger paradoxes” of American constitutional history – Foreign AffairsStartling and innovative … A vivid portrait of mostly unfamiliar voices of constitutional demurral from this archive and beyond … Left hanging in the air at the end of this rewarding book is a dark question: At what cost have we abandoned amendment? – New York Times Book ReviewWe the People is most illuminating when it unearths long-ignored but prescient provisions that sprang from groups excluded from the body politic … a compelling case for the need to institute constitutional reforms and steer away from a system heavily reliant on the actions of a hyper-politicized Supreme Court – Washington PostLepore’s sweeping new history of efforts to amend the constitution is so relevant … thoughtful and engaging – Irish TimesA gifted storyteller – TLSTraces the history of constitutional amendment and the significance of the constitutional tradition to the American state – History Today, Books of the Year

Jill Lepore is the David Woods Kemper ‘41 Professor of American History at Harvard University, where she teaches classes in evidence, historical methods, the humanities, and American political history. She is the author of The Name of War: King Philip’s War and the Origins of American Identity (winner of the Bancroft Prize), New York Burning: Liberty, Slavery and Conspiracy in Eighteenth-Century Manhattan (a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize), The Secret History of Wonder Woman (winner of the American History Book Prize), If Then (longlisted for the National Book Award) and many other titles. She is a staff writer at the New Yorker, host of the podcast The Last Archive, and was the winner of the Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thought in 2021.