We The People: Community Book Club with Allison Vick

In honor of the 250th anniversary of the United States, we've been holding a range of events to celebrate. Join us at Hub City Bookshop for a special, one-time community book club with Allison Vick. We'll be diving into Jill Lepore's We The People, which covers the history of the American constitution. Come prepared to jump into a discussion centered on the many different facets of one of America's founding documents.

You can purchase copies of We the People at the bookshop. Receive a 10% discount on the book when you RSVP via our Eventbrite. Please note that Jill Lepore will not be in attendance. 

About the Book

"[Lepore's] 15th book, We the People, a history of the U.S. Constitution, may be her best yet, a capacious work that lands at the right moment, like a life buoy, as our ship of state takes on water." ―Hamilton Cain, Los Angeles Times

From the best-selling author of These Truths comes We the People, a stunning new history of the U.S. Constitution, for a troubling new era.

The U.S. Constitution is among the oldest constitutions in the world but also one of the most difficult to amend. Jill Lepore, Harvard professor of history and law, explains why in We the People, the most original history of the Constitution in decades―and an essential companion to her landmark history of the United States, These Truths.

Arriving on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding―the anniversary, too, of the first state constitutions―We the People offers a wholly new history of the Constitution. “One of the Constitution’s founding purposes was to prevent change,” Lepore writes. “Another was to allow for change without violence.” Relying on the extraordinary database she has assembled at the Amendments Project, Lepore recounts centuries of attempts, mostly by ordinary Americans, to realize the promise of the Constitution. Yet nearly all those efforts have failed. Although nearly twelve thousand amendments have been introduced in Congress since 1789, and thousands more have been proposed outside its doors, only twenty-seven have ever been ratified. More troubling, the Constitution has not been meaningfully amended since 1971. Without recourse to amendment, she argues, the risk of political violence rises. So does the risk of constitutional change by presidential or judicial fiat.

Challenging both the Supreme Court’s monopoly on constitutional interpretation and the flawed theory of “originalism,” Lepore contends in this “gripping and unfamiliar story of our own past” that the philosophy of amendment is foundational to American constitutionalism. The framers never intended for the Constitution to be preserved, like a butterfly, under glass, Lepore argues, but expected that future generations would be forever tinkering with it, hoping to mend America by amending its Constitution through an orderly deliberative and democratic process.

Lepore’s remarkable history seeks, too, to rekindle a sense of constitutional possibility. Congressman Jamie Raskin writes that Lepore “has thrown us a lifeline, a way of seeing the Constitution neither as an authoritarian straitjacket nor a foolproof magic amulet but as the arena of fierce, logical, passionate, and often deadly struggle for a more perfect union.” At a time when the Constitution’s vulnerability is all too evident, and the risk of political violence all too real, We the People, with its shimmering prose and pioneering research, hints at the prospects for a better constitutional future, an amended America.

About the Discussion Leader

At Converse, Dr. Allison Vick teaches American Government and the American Congress as well as other courses surrounding American political institutions and behavior. Dr. Vick has a passion for teaching the American Government survey course as an opportunity to cover a wide range of topics and help students find an area of politics that interests them.

Dr. Vick received her BA and MPA from Augusta University and her PhD from the University of Georgia. Outside of Converse, she enjoys spending time with family, traveling, and watching sports. She especially loves catching an Atlanta Braves or UGA game.