Our Constitution: A Conversation In Three Parts

The Essex Library will host a three-part series that looks at our Constitution present, past, and future. Sam Tanenhaus leads the first conversation on May 26 at 7 p.m. and then will be joined on June 2 and 9, both at 7 p.m., by Yale Law professor Akhil Reed Amar. Bring your questions and ideas.

The Constitution Today 

Ballot-counting at election time, Supreme Court nominations, stalemates between the President and Congress – they all begin in the workings of our Constitution. Join historian and journalist Sam Tanenhaus for a wide-ranging conversation about our founding document and how it helps make sense of what’s going on today.

The Constitution’s Beginnings 

Distinguished Yale law professor Akhil Reed Amar, one of the country’s foremost Constitutional scholars, will talk with Sam Tanenhaus about the world of the Founders. What ideas and principles did they grappled with? How did they draw on the past to create a republic that would endure into the future even as the nation itself grew and evolved?

The Future of the Constitution 

Professor Amar returns for another conversation with Sam Tanenhaus, this time for a look ahead. Does the Constitution still work today? Should parts or all of it be updated? What are some of the most intriguing proposals for doing so and could they work?

Sam Tanenhaus, the author of bestsellers “The Death of Conservatism” and “Whittaker Chambers,” is working on a biography of William F. Buckley Jr. He was editor of the New York Times Book Review from 2004 to 2013. Akhil Reed Amar is Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University, where he teaches constitutional law in both Yale College and Yale Law School. His work has won awards from both the American Bar Association and the Federalist Society, and he has been cited by Supreme Court justices across the spectrum in more than 40 cases. He is the author of more than a hundred law review articles and several books, most notably The Bill of Rights (1998 — winner of the Yale University Press Governors’ Award), America’s Constitution (2005 — winner of the ABA’s Silver Gavel Award), America’s Unwritten Constitution (2012 — named one of the year’s 100 best nonfiction books by The Washington Post), and The Constitution Today (2016 — named one of the year’s top ten nonfiction books by Time magazine). His latest and most ambitious book, The Words That Made Us: America’s Constitutional Conversation, 1760-1840, came out in May 2021. He has recently launched a weekly podcast, Amarica’s Constitution. A wide assortment of his articles and op-eds and video links to many of his public lectures and free online courses may be found at akhilamar.com.

These in-person events are free and open to all. For more information or to register please call the Essex Library at 860-767-1560 or see: https://www.youressexlibrary.org/adult-services/adults-featured-events/. The Essex Library is located at 33 West Avenue in Essex.