The legal scholar considers the living history of the United States Constitution in the decades after it was adopted. For recommended reading, event details, and more visit: [ Ссылка ]


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When the Constitution won popular approval in 1788, it was the culmination of 30 years of passionate argument over the nature of government. But ratification hardly ended the conversation. For the next half century, ordinary Americans and statesmen alike continued to wrestle with those weighty questions in the halls of government and in the pages of newspapers. Should the nation's borders be expanded? Should America allow slavery to spread westward? What rights should American Indian nations hold? What is the proper role of the judicial branch? The Words That Made Us unites history and law in a vivid narrative of the biggest constitutional questions early Americans confronted.

Akhil Reed Amar speaks with Jeffrey Rosen about assessing the answers that were offered, and about how the Constitution's origins and consolidation are a guide for anyone seeking to properly understand its power and meaning today.


ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Akhil Reed Amar is the Sterling professor of law and political science at Yale University and the author of several books on constitutional law and history including America's Constitution: A Biography and America's Unwritten Constitution. He lives in Woodbridge, Connecticut.

Jeffrey Rosen is President & CEO of the National Constitution Center. He is also a Professor of Law at The George Washington University Law School and a Contributing Editor of The Atlantic. Rosen is a graduate of Harvard College, Oxford University, and Yale Law School. He is the author of seven books including biographies of Louis Brandeis and William Howard Taft. His most recent book is Conversations with RBG: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg on Life, Love, Liberty, and Law. His essays and commentaries have appeared in The New York Times, on National Public Radio, in the New Republic, where he was the legal affairs editor, and in The New Yorker, where he has been a staff writer.

LIVE from NYPL is made possible by the support of Library patrons and friends, as well as by the continuing generosity of Celeste Bartos, Mahnaz Ispahani Bartos and Adam Bartos, and the Margaret and Herman Sokol Public Education Endowment Fund.


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