Constitution Day

Recommended Reading

Compiled by: Richard R. Johnson, Professor, University of Washington Department of History

Stephen Breyer, Active Liberty: Interpreting Our Democratic Constitution, New York: Knopf (2005).
Daniel J. Hulsebosch, Constituting Empire: New York and the Transformation of Constitutionalism in the Atlantic World, 1664-1830, Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press (2005).
Renata Uits, Constitutions, Courts and History: Historical Narratives in Constitutional Adjudication, New York: Central European University Press (2005).
Christopher S. Kelley, ed., Executing the Constitution: Putting the President Back into the Constitution, Suny Series in American Constitutionalism. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press (2006).
John Yoo, The Powers of War and Peace: the Constitution and Foreign Affairs after 9/11, Chicago: Chicago University Press (2006).
Joseph C. Morton, Shapers of the Great Debate at the Constitutional Convention of 1787: A Biographical Dictionary, Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press (2006).

Max Farrand, ed., Records of the Federal Convention (4 volumes, 1911, with a supplementary 5 th volume edited by James Hutson, 1987).
The fullest compendium of the debates and proceedings that took place at the Philadelphia convention.
J. R. Pole, ed., The Federalist. The best current edition of the classic argument for the Constitution’s ratification, originally authored as newspapers columns by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay. Often published under the title of The Federalist Papers
Cecilia Kenyon, ed., The Antifederalists. Selections from the writings of those who opposed the ratification of the Constitution.

Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787. Brilliant, if scholarly and lengthy, analysis of the evolving process of constitution-making during the revolutionary era, arguably the American Revolution’s most important contribution to world history.
Forrest McDonald, Novus Ordo Seclorum: The Intellectual Origins of the Constitution (1985). Stimulating essay on the ideas and theories that contributed to forming the Constitution.
Jack Rakove, Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution (1996). Penetrating analysis of what the writers of the Constitution intended and wrought, with implications for those today who seek the document’s “original intent”.
Carol Berkin, A Brilliant Solution: Inventing the American Constitution (2002) and Charles L. Mee, The Genius of the People (1987). Two very readable accounts of the work of the Philadelphia Convention.
Max M. Edlin, A Revolution in Favor of Government: Origins of the U.S. Constitution and the Making of the American State (2003). An argument that the Framers intended to create a strong and empowered national state.
Gordon Wood, ed., The Confederation and the Constitution: The Critical Issues (1979). A collection of essays on the formative period of the 1780s.

Melvin Urosky, A March of Liberty: A Constitutional History of the United States (1988) and Alfred H. Kelly, Winfred A. Harbison, and Herman Belz, The American Constitution, its Origins and Development (7th ed., 1991). Two standard, and substantial, works of reference, detailing the Constitution’s historical evolution.
Michael Kammen, A Machine That Would Go of Itself: The Constitution in American Life (1986). A cultural history of the Constitution, as it has been viewed by successive generations up to the present.
Forrest McDonald, A Constitutional History of the United States (1982). Brief exposition of the Constitution’s development and interpretation, taking a conservative perspective. Peter Irons, A People’s History of the Supreme Court (1999). Famous cases, and the talents and personalities of the justices who decided them.
Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong, The Brethren: Inside the Supreme Court (1979). The workings and internal politics of the Court exposed.

John Garraty, ed., Quarrels that Have Shaped the Constitution (1964, expanded ed., 1987). Essays by various scholars on famous cases.
Ellen Alderman and Caroline Kennedy, In Our Defense: the Bill of Rights in Action (1991). Cases that have shaped the 20th-century evolution of the Bill of Rights.
Stanley I. Kutler, Privilege and Creative Destruction: The Charles River Bridge Case (1971). A study of an 1837 decision on the relationship of corporate privilege to national economic development.
Don Fehrenbacher, The Dred Scott Case: Its Significance in American Law and Politics (1978; abridged version as Slavery, Law and Politics: The Dred Scott Case in Historical Perspective, 1981). Classic study of 1857 decision that helped to precipitate the Civil War.
Richard Kluger, Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education (1976). Lengthy but gripping account of the evolution of this 1954 decision, a turning point in America’s race relations and the role of the Supreme Court.
Anthony Lewis, Gideon’s Trumpet (1964). Very readable discussion of the 1963 case that enshrined the right of even indigent defendants to legal counsel.