The Genius of America: How the Constitution Saved Our Country--and Why It Can Again

“Lane and Oreskes … remind us of how essential the Constitution is to our nationhood and why it's important for the country to rekindle the constitutional conscience as we face the challenges of the twenty-first century.”—Cokie Roberts, ABC News and NPR, author of Founding Mothers

The United States is the longest-running democracy in history at 220 years. While many countries around the world have used our Constitution as their model, Americans are growing frustrated with gridlock, partisan politics, and special interests. In our impatience for results, we have lost sight of what the framers invented—a pragmatic document that channels self-interest into productive consensus. Veteran journalist Michael Oreskes and legal scholar Eric Lane make a passionate plea to restore our “constitutional conscience.” They challenge us to let this great document work as it was designed—valuing political process over product—and ask us to lean on the framers and their experience. Unless we reconnect with the document so central to our success, the democracy we hold dear will be at risk.