Description: Robert Tsai's history invites readers into the circle of defiant groups who refused to accept the Constitution's definition of who "We the People" are and how their authority should be exercised. It is the story of America as told by dissenters: squatters, Native Americans, abolitionists, socialists, internationalists, and racial nationalists.
Brief description: Robert L. Tsai is Professor of Law at American University.
Review Quotes: Engaging to read... [Tsai's] picture is far richer than the grim founder worship usually found in American political orthodoxy... For Tsai's constitution writers, the U.S. Constitution stands as an obligatory model, something they necessarily define themselves in relation to. All designed some sort of republic. All detailed mechanisms for 'popular decision making, divided powers, and enumerated rights.' And all, in the end, underline just how largely the Constitution figures in the American political imagination: less a charter of freedom than a document of power.--Tom Arnold-Foster "Daily Beast" (7/4/2014 12:00:00 AM)