A Country With No Name: Tales from the Constitution

by Sebastian De Grazia

In an imaginative and masterful work of history, Pulitzer Prize-winner Sebastian de Grazia has created two memorable characters. Nineteen-year-old Oliver Huggins is in for the tutorial of his life. For twelve afternoons, Claire St. John, a beguiling British graduate student, will reveal to him the untold story of American Constitutional history. Her the Socratic method. Her that the Constitution was itself unconstitutional, and that its authors' inability to choose a name for the republic muddied the document's meaning for the future ahead.

Through these "tutorials" de Grazia passes in review our most revered heroes—Jefferson, Washington, Marshall, Lincoln, and Thoreau—revealing the complexity of their characters. St. John's unsettling tales arouse more in her disciple than intellectual curiosity. Their relationship unrolls in so humorous and seductive a way that only a musty academic could object. Satirical, intelligent, and sure-handed, A Country with No Name combines history and literature, politics and law to reinvigorate our best traditions.

Genres: Fiction

432 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

Reviews

[Melissa · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book does not have fidelity to history. I would not recommend this to anyone. It was a random book I found at the library. I guess when you are writing a "fiction" book you don't need to worry about being accurate with history.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

awesome.

[Steven W · Rating 4 out of 5]

I 1st read this in'99 and was blown away.....it's great but not as good as I remember. It's smug, pretentious and preachy but I does give a history of the constitution from a unique point of view.