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Rated We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution 6/10

I got distracted by several other books while reading this so I probably don't have the most coherent impression of it, but this was mostly a discursive survey of the many attempts to amend the US Constitution, most of which have failed. If there's a through line, it's mostly a lament that we no longer have the unity required to change this thing that was designed to be changed. Lepore might well have titled it, "We Who Were the People." I would have appreciated some more detail on recent amendments to state constitutions, which have proven for more malleable, especially on state constitutional conventions. Dwelling on conventions by groups who only have the power to issue demands, not write law, was interesting, but basically just prefiguration.

#book

Published 2026-03-29 23:03 UTC · bridged from Atmosphere