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.
Jill Lepore is the David Woods Kemper ’41 Professor of American History at Harvard University and professor of law at Harvard Law School. She is also a staff writer at The New Yorker. Her many books include the international bestseller These Truths: A History of the United States. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Lepore will be in conversation with Evan Osnos. Osnos has been a staff writer at The New Yorker for seventeen years. In addition, he is a nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and co-host of The New Yorker’s Political Scene podcast. His coverage ranges from politics and foreign affairs to white-collar crime and espionage. He has written profiles of Xi Jinping and Kamala Harris; visited North Korea during the nuclear crisis of 2017; and reported from the siege on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. His first book, “Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China,” won the National Book Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His latest book “The Haves and Have-Yachts: Dispatches on the Ultrarich,” was an instant New York Times bestseller. Prior to The New Yorker, he worked as the Beijing bureau chief for the Chicago Tribune, where he was on teams that won the Pulitzer Prize in 2001 and 2008. Before his assignment to China, he worked in the Middle East, reporting mostly from Iraq. He lives with his family near Washington, D.C.