On the evening of Constitution Day, the National Constitution Center presents a special Constitution Day America’s Town Hall program exploring how to understand the legacy of the American Revolution and the founders in the 21st century. Best-selling historian Gordon Wood is joined at the National Constitution Center in person by fellow historian Edward Larson and virtually by author Emily Pears and scholar Lucas Morel to discuss Wood’s newest book Power and Liberty: Constitutionalism in the American Revolution. Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, moderates.
Participants
Gordon Wood is Alva O. Way University Professor and Professor of History Emeritus at Brown University. He is the author of numerous books, the most recent of which is Power and Liberty: Constitutionalism in the American Revolution. For his scholarship, Wood has won several awards including a National Humanities Medal and the Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr, Award from the Society of American Historians. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and writes for the New York Review of Books.
Edward Larson is the Hugh and Hazel Darling Chair in Law and University Professor of History at Pepperdine University. Larson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, and author of several acclaimed books, including Franklin & Washington: The Founding Partnership, The Return of George Washington: Uniting the States, 1783-1789, and A Magnificent Catastrophe: The Tumultuous Election of 1800.
Lucas Morel is the John K. Boardman, Jr. Professor of Politics at Washington and Lee and a professor in the Master’s Program in American History and Government at Ashland University. He is the author of several books, most recently, Lincoln and the American Founding. Morel also currently serves on the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission, which will plan activities to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States of America.
Emily Pears is Assistant Professor of Government at Claremont McKenna College, where she teaches courses in American politics and American political thought. Pears' research has appeared in Publius: The Journal of Federalism, American Political Thought, and The Journal of Policy History. Her book, Cords of Affection: Constructing Constitutional Union in Early American History will be released this fall by the University Press of Kansas.
Jeffrey Rosen is the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization devoted to educating the public about the U.S. Constitution. Rosen is also professor of law at The George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic.
Additional Resources
- Gordon Wood, Power and Liberty Constitutionalism in the American Revolution
- Edward Larson, Franklin & Washington: The Founding Partnership
- George Washington, Circular Letter to the States (1783)
- Lucas Morel, Lincoln and the American Founding
- Emily Pears, Cords of Affection: Constructing Constitutional Union in Early American History
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