Jill Lepore: A History of the U.S. Constitution

Two hundred fifty years after the nation’s founding, Harvard professor of history and law Jill Lepore comes to Commonwealth Club World Affairs to delve into the foundational document of the country, the Constitution. It’s one of the oldest constitutions in the world, but it has also been criticized for being one of the hardest to change.

Lepore explores the history of the Constitution and its pertinence to our current troubled era in her new book We the People. She notes that nearly 12,000 amendments were introduced in Congress since 1789, but only 27 have been ratified. “One of the Constitution’s founding purposes was to prevent change,” she says. “Another was to allow for change without violence.”

The last time the U.S. Constitution was amended was in 1971, despite continuing attempts to do so from left and right. Lepore says that without the flexibility to amend the Constitution, there is a higher risk of political violence and of presidential or judicial fiat. She argues that the framers of the Constitution never intended for it to be perfectly preserved under glass like a butterfly collection; instead, they knew that future generations would change it through an orderly, democratic, and deliberative process.

How has the Constitution performed in carrying out those tasks? Join us for a discussion with Jill Lepore about how change can make the Constitution and our country stronger.

Audio excerpt from We the People: A History of the Constitution by Jill Lepore, narrated by the author, is provided courtesy of Recorded Books, copyright 2025. The full recording is available wherever audiobooks are sold.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices