Description: Tackles the crucial questions about the Founding: Were the Framers motivated by their economic interests; how democratic was their Constitution; should we interpret the Founding using philosophical or strictly historical approaches; and what traditions of political thought were most important to the Founders?
Review Quotes:
"What an impressive achievement is this exhaustively thorough, crisply written, shrewdly analytical study of the principal interpretations that have shaped the history of the U.S. Constitution."--Joyce Appleby, author of Inheriting the Revolution: The First Generation of Americans
"Gibson demonstrates once again why he is one of the best of the political theorists working on the founding."--Gordon S. Wood, author of Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different
"Superb. Taken together with his Interpreting the Founding, Gibson's book provides the essential point of departure for future work on our Constitutional beginnings."--Peter Onuf, author of Jefferson's Empire: The Language of American Nationhood