We the People

A History of the U.S. Constitution

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.

Published 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.

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.

©2025 Jill Lepore (P)2025 Recorded Books

The author is balanced

Jill Lepore explained the majority of problems in both a legal document that goes unchanged and how the culture behind the same becomes rigid and frail. She is willing to explain both sides of the political structure and then goes on to state that neither side has held the nation up or work to maintain our world. An excellent read.

Great content; poor performance

We The People is prime evidence to support the argument that writers are often not the best choice for the audio adaptation of their work.

An Excellent Analysis

This is an excellent history and analysis of our US Constitution and the many people over the years who have had a hand in the writing and interpretation. The author ties everything together so well and has a great turn of phase. It is also superbly read. If you are at all interested in how we got to where we are today and where we might be going, it is an awesome read. I highly recommend it for all Americans.

Her deep knowledge.

Not the best reader. Would have been better with someone else reading it just my thoughts.

What an extraordinary journey is here described

I freely admit to having been a committed fan, nay an addict of Dr. LaPore ever since I read my first of her books, but this one, at least to my mind, is her most effective and most affecting.

I would hesitate to try to either describe or to analyze this extraordinary work. I’ve taught American history at the elementary level for over 40 years, but compared to the depth of scholarship and understanding of our Constitution expressed in this work, I stand a rank amateur.

As an American history teacher I’ve lived that history in a way that many have not, and in this masterful exploration of the core document of our nation and how we have both understood and treated it over its lifetime so far, I find myself almost weeping at our failure to use its potential in so many of the ways we have, and yet overwhelmed with the power of the potential which lies within it. Both are so clear in Dr. LePore’s exquisitely written examination of this flawed yet magnificent document, and the journey it and we have shared.

Had I my way, I would demand that this be placed at the center of every hight school history curriculum in the country.