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The Second Creation
- Fixing the American Constitution in the Founding Era
- Narrated by: Kristoffer Tabori
- Length: 20 hrs and 52 mins
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Publisher's summary
A stunning revision of our founding document’s evolving history that forces us to confront anew the question that animated the founders so long ago: What is our Constitution?
Americans widely believe that the United States Constitution was created when it was drafted in 1787 and ratified in 1788. But in a shrewd rereading of the founding era, Jonathan Gienapp upends this long-held assumption, recovering the unknown story of American constitutional creation in the decade after its adoption - a story with explosive implications for current debates over constitutional originalism and interpretation.
When the Constitution first appeared, it was shrouded in uncertainty. Not only was its meaning unclear, but so too was its essential nature. Was the American Constitution a written text, or something else? - Was it a legal text? Was it finished or unfinished? What rules would guide its interpretation? Who would adjudicate competing readings? As political leaders put the Constitution to work, none of these questions had answers. Through vigorous debates they confronted the document’s uncertainty, and - over time - how these leaders imagined the Constitution radically changed. They had begun trying to fix, or resolve, an imperfect document, but they ended up fixing, or cementing, a very particular notion of the Constitution as a distinctively textual and historical artifact circumscribed in space and time. This means that some of the Constitution’s most definitive characteristics, ones which are often treated as innate, were only added later and were thus contingent and optional.
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The complete texts of the documents that tell the story of the clashes and compromises that gave birth to the Unites States of America. Should the members of the government be elected by direct vote of the people? Should the government be headed by a single executive, and how powerful should that executive be? Should immigrants be allowed into the United States? How should judges be appointed? What human rights should be safe from government infringement? In 1787, these important questions and others were raised as the states debated the merits of the proposed Constitution.
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don't buy this
- By Kindle Customer on 07-31-20
By: Ralph Ketcham - editor, and others
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The Founding Fathers' Guide to the Constitution
- By: Brion McClanahan
- Narrated by: David Cochran Heath
- Length: 6 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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How did the founding generation intend for us to interpret and apply the Constitution? Are liberals right when they cite its “elastic” clauses to justify big government, or are conservatives right when they cite its explicit limits on federal power? Professor Brion McClanahan, popular author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Founding Fathers, finds the answers by going directly to the source—the Founders themselves, who debated all the relevant issues in their state constitutional conventions.
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Biased from the opening
- By David on 11-05-20
By: Brion McClanahan
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On Revolution
- By: Hannah Arendt
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Hannah Arendt's penetrating observations on the modern world, based on a profound knowledge of the past, have been fundamental to our understanding of our political landscape. On Revolution is her classic exploration of a phenomenon that has reshaped the globe. From the 18th-century rebellions in America and France to the explosive changes of the 20th century, Arendt traces the changing face of revolution and its relationship to war while underscoring the crucial role such events will play in the future.
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Insightful Analysis of Differing Revolutions
- By Roger on 01-10-18
By: Hannah Arendt
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The Broken Constitution
- Lincoln, Slavery, and the Refounding of America
- By: Noah Feldman
- Narrated by: Noah Feldman
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Abraham Lincoln is justly revered for his brilliance, compassion, humor, and rededication of the United States to achieving liberty and justice for all. He led the nation into a bloody civil war to uphold the system of government established by the US Constitution - a system he regarded as the “last best hope of mankind”. But how did Lincoln understand the Constitution?
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Takes you to Lincoln’s time for a new understanding
- By Jason Cecil on 12-22-21
By: Noah Feldman
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We the Fallen People
- The Founders and the Future of American Democracy
- By: Robert Tracy McKenzie
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 10 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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We the Fallen People presents a close look at the ideas of human nature to be found in the history of American democratic thought. McKenzie, following C. S. Lewis, claims there are only two reasons to believe in majority rule: because we have confidence in human nature - or because we don't. The Founders subscribed to the biblical principle that humans are fallen and their virtue is always doubtful, and they wrote the US Constitution to frame a republic intended to handle our weaknesses.
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Thoughtful reflection and historical perspective, but ultimately no easy answer
- By Brandon on 03-28-23
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The Words That Made Us
- America's Constitutional Conversation, 1760-1840
- By: Akhil Reed Amar
- Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi
- Length: 27 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Words That Made Us, Akhil Reed Amar unites history and law in a vivid narrative of the biggest constitutional questions early Americans confronted, and he expertly assesses the answers they offered. His account of the document's origins and consolidation is a guide for anyone seeking to properly understand America's Constitution today.
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And the words that made Us
- By Anonymous User on 10-17-22
By: Akhil Reed Amar
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The Constitution of Liberty
- The Definitive Edition
- By: Ronald Hamowy - Edited by, F. A. Hayek
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 20 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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The Constitution of Liberty is considered Hayek's classic statement on the ideals of freedom and liberty, ideals that he believes have guided - and must continue to guide - the growth of Western civilization. Here, Hayek defends the principles of a free society, casting a skeptical eye on the growth of the welfare state and examining the challenges to freedom posed by an ever-expanding government.
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very detailed and important
- By Big Kyle 570 on 06-17-20
By: Ronald Hamowy - Edited by, and others
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Corruption in America
- From Benjamin Franklin's Snuff Box to Citizens United
- By: Zephyr Teachout
- Narrated by: Jo Anna Perrin
- Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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For two centuries, the Framers' ideas about political corruption flourished in the courts, even in the absence of clear rules governing voters, civil officers, and elected officials. In the 1970s, the U.S. Supreme Court began to narrow the definition of corruption, and the meaning has since changed dramatically. No case makes that clearer than Citizens United.
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Law Review+
- By Ben P. on 01-02-17
By: Zephyr Teachout
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Active Liberty
- Interpreting Our Democratic Constitution
- By: Stephen Breyer
- Narrated by: Stephen Breyer
- Length: 3 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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First published in September 2005 and based on a series of lectures delivered at Harvard, Active Liberty is a tight, extremely readable, almost memoir-like guide to interpreting the Constitution. Written by a justice of the Supreme Court, it focuses on a pragmatic approach to this great document that may become crucial as the Supreme Court faces deeply divisive decisions.
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Engaging, If Somewhat Dense
- By Maki on 09-04-07
By: Stephen Breyer
What listeners say about The Second Creation
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Christopher
- 11-23-22
An important corrective
Gienapp’s The Second Creation offers a thorough, and perhaps exhaustive, account of constitutional creation and interpretation in the early American republic. It serves as an important corrective to both existing historical scholarship and (perhaps more importantly) judges attempting to hide their partisan activism under the guise of “originalism.”
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- GM
- 08-30-23
A Fascinating History
History is at its most powerful when it unearths the construction of deeply significant norms and practices that makes you question your assumptions about how society functions. This book is a poster child for that in that it makes you think about the way we view and talk about the US constitution. It also exposes the myths surrounding popular notions of the sanctity of “the framer’s intentions”. Can not recommend this strongly enough. Majestically written, engaging, thorough and paradigm shifting.
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- DBrown
- 06-05-24
Great book, frustrating narration
The substance of this book is terrific; a well-researched, very insightful account of how people thought about the nature of the Constitution, and constitutions generally, in the Founding era, with important (arguably fatal) implications for originalist interpretation theories. But I completely agree with other reviewers about the narration: the narrator's constant announcement of "quote/unquote"--often several times in one sentence, dozens of times in a minute--is distracting to the point of being unbearable. And it's wholly unnecessary in an audio narration, where quoted material can be conveyed by voice intonation instead announcing every quotation mark.
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- Richard
- 08-08-20
Ratifying Convention Breathed Life into Constitution
James Madison said that. It is a living constitution because We The People breathed life into it! Those first ten years of congress of which Madison was involved created the originalist and living constitution concept. And Madison played every side of it. Fascinating and ground breaking research and weaving the the research into understandable form from my limited perspective.
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- Amazon Customer
- 07-26-23
Quote, Unquote
Terrific book. The issue is with the reading of it. It’s an academic book that constantly quotes other sources, and the reader begins and ends each quotation by saying “quote/unquote.” This happens sometimes multiple times per sentence and quickly becomes grating. It adds little to no value for a listener but is very distracting.
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1 person found this helpful
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- David Paquette
- 11-02-22
Infuriating Narration
I was very much looking forward to hearing this book. The underlying content (so far) is impressive, as I expected, BUT I will not listen to the rest. The performance is maddening in one very specific way. As I had heard, Mr. Gienapp took extraordinary pains to reference and accurately cite his sources, often using multiple fragments of Founders' writings in a single paragraph, or even in a single sentence. He carefully put any direct quotations between quotation marks. This is admirable. However, instead of setting such quotations off by using inflection, as many narrators do, this performer, Mr. Tabori, insists on saying, "quote" at the beginning and "unquote" at the end of every such citation. The result is a narration that is SO choppy that the meanings of the sentences becomes fragmented and difficult to follow. I am only partway through Chapter 1, and I have heard the words "quote" and "unquote" more than one hundred times already. It has become like listening to nails on a chalkboard. This approach to quotations is not a reading style. It is a tic.
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2 people found this helpful