The Promise of America

Presented by the National Constitution Center, an inspirational collection of essays exploring the founding principles that continue to shape American democracy from the nation’s leading constitutional scholars across the political spectrum.

The Declaration was just the beginning.

The revolutionary ideas of 1776 set forth in the Declaration of Independence and the national framework established in the Constitution in 1787 laid the foundation for America’s story—chapters that continue to shape our nation. What did liberty and equality mean in 1776 and what do they ask of us today?

In this one-of-a-kind keepsake volume, leading historical scholars take a fresh look at America’s founding documents—the texts, historical context, key principles that animated the framers, and their influence across American history and around the world.

Featuring US Supreme Court Justices Neil M. Gorsuch and Stephen G. Breyer (Ret.), world-renowned scholars like Walter Isaacson and Akhil Reed Amar, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Gordon S. Wood, MacArthur Genius Grant recipient Danielle Allen, and numerous other New York Times bestselling authors, this commemorative collection of essays brings together our nation’s foremost historians and scholars from across the political spectrum, and invites all Americans to explore the ideals that inspired the greatest and most enduring democratic experiment in history.