Jonathan Gienapp, "The Second Creation: Fixing the American Constitution in the Founding Era" (Harvard UP, 2018)
In his book, The Second Creation: Fixing the American Constitution in the Founding Era (Harvard University Press, 2018), Jonathan Gienapp revisits the Founding Era to retell the story of America\u2019s favorite document. Looking at the Constitution\u2019s creation, Gienapp makes a compelling case for why we should reconceptualize just what this document meant to early Americans. By examining the debates which gripped Congress immediately following the ratification of the Constitution, and throughout the 1790s, Gienapp illustrates how the very meaning of the Constitution, both as an idea and a text, was forged through partisan politics. If most Americans think of the Constitution as a fixed document, Gienapp shows how \u201cfixing\u201d the Constitution turned it into a \u201cfixed\u201d document. The Second gives us a new starting point for how to interpret the constitutional politics of the Early Republic, and the enduring image of the Constitution to our own day.\nJonathan Gienapp is an assistant professor in History at Stanford University. He is a scholar of the Revolutionary Era and Early Republic. He\u2019s principally interested in these period\u2019s political culture, constitutionalism, and intellectual history.\nDerek Litvak is a Ph.D. student in the department of history at the University of Maryland.\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices\nSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law