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The Genius of America: How the Constitution Saved Our Country--and Why It Can Again
An inspiring and revelatory look at the document that has made our country the longest surviving democracy in the history of The Constitution of the United States. The history of democracy is a history of failure. The United States holds the record at 230 years, yet the document at the nation's center is one that we take for granted. Due to a combination of heightened frustration, moves to skirt the constitutional process, and a widespread disconnect between the people and their constitutional "conscience," Lane and Oreskes warn us our system is at risk. The Genius of America looks at the Constitution's history relative to this current crisis. Starting with the eleven years between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution's adoption, they show how our near failure to create a loosely knit nation led the framers to devise a system that takes human nature into account. Next they provide examples of how we have weathered crises in the past, from early attempts at political tyranny to the Civil War. Finally they turn to two periods, one of great consensus (from Roosevelt's New Deal through Johnson's Great Society) and another of division (from Reagan through George W. Bush), both of which demonstrate the Constitution's effectiveness. In the final assessment, Lane and Oreskes challenge us to let this great document work as it was designed―in times of change and stasis. They hold our leaders accountable, calling on them to stop fanning the flames of division. And while evenhanded in its presentation, The Genius of America reminds us the Constitution is our national glue.
305 pages, Hardcover
First published September 18, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
July 13, 2009
The Genius of America by Eric Lane and Michael Oreskes examines the foundation of our constitutional government in a concise and compelling manner. Throughout this work, the authors refer to our “Constitutional Conscience” as a vital component of the American political system. Democracy in and of itself will not protect the rights of citizens. A constitution in and of itself will not preserve democracy. Germany was a constitutional democracy in 1933, when Adolf Hitler came to power.
In 1787, our founding fathers ingeniously created an entirely new form of democracy--one designed to protect minorities from majority rule and majorities from minority rule. Checks and balances between three branches of government keep any one branch from obtaining too much power. While our system is slow and often leads to frustrating stalemates, it requires that people work together to produce results. Such a government has built-in impediments against militant groups who might take control at the expense of other citizens. In other words, the very machinery that makes governmental change so maddeningly slow preserves our freedom.
Lane and Oreskes clearly explain challenges our Constitution has faced over the years, such as Proposition 13, which allowed the 50% of Californians who voted to make a sweeping decision for the entire state on tax revenues. Direct democracy doesn’t always provide a centrist approach. This is something our founding fathers understood when they wrote the Constitution.
In closing, the authors called for more Civics Education for our young people. If there are flaws in our government and changes are needed, they must be made with a solid understanding of what we already have. Reading The Genius of America has reaffirmed my admiration for our uniquely American democracy and inspired me in my own efforts to promote Constitution Day activities on September 17th.
In 1787, our founding fathers ingeniously created an entirely new form of democracy--one designed to protect minorities from majority rule and majorities from minority rule. Checks and balances between three branches of government keep any one branch from obtaining too much power. While our system is slow and often leads to frustrating stalemates, it requires that people work together to produce results. Such a government has built-in impediments against militant groups who might take control at the expense of other citizens. In other words, the very machinery that makes governmental change so maddeningly slow preserves our freedom.
Lane and Oreskes clearly explain challenges our Constitution has faced over the years, such as Proposition 13, which allowed the 50% of Californians who voted to make a sweeping decision for the entire state on tax revenues. Direct democracy doesn’t always provide a centrist approach. This is something our founding fathers understood when they wrote the Constitution.
In closing, the authors called for more Civics Education for our young people. If there are flaws in our government and changes are needed, they must be made with a solid understanding of what we already have. Reading The Genius of America has reaffirmed my admiration for our uniquely American democracy and inspired me in my own efforts to promote Constitution Day activities on September 17th.
July 10, 2017
This is a short and very helpful book. It gives some valuable history lessons about how the U.S. Constitution has worked in the past and why it worked, with implications for how we can make the Constitution continue to work.
The authors argue rather convincingly that the reason the Constitution has worked is because of our Constitutional Conscience – a set of beliefs about the Constitution that keeps us together. They define that Constitutional Conscience as the willingness to settle disputes within the confines of government (rather than by force), to compromise, and to respect the constitutional process even when dissatisfied with the result.
For a short time at the beginning of the Revolution, Americans thought that officials seeking the common good would be enough for good government. They quickly learned that this was not true – their army almost starved in the field and it was a miracle that they won the war, all because the members of Congress and state officials could not put their own narrow interests aside. It became clear that Americans, like all people, are selfish. There is no way to change that – the best a government can do is to harness that selfishness. That is what the Constitution did. It set up a system that would protect liberty by setting interest against interest within a framework. For laws to be made, people with different interests would have to give and take and compromise. That conflict within consensus – people fighting for their own desires within an agreed framework – has worked well.
The authors give a very good brief account of the Framers’ theories of government and how they came to form a constitution that checked power and made consensus necessary to make laws. They also give historical examples of how the Constitution survived different crises, starting with ratification and the push for amendments, and including Nixon’s resignation.
They also argue – and it is crucial to understand this – that even the text of the Constitution doesn’t matter if it conflicts with the existing consensus. For example, the Civil War amendments were adopted without consensus support, and they were ignored until a consensus emerged to enforce them. In other words, our Constitutional Conscience may matter more than our constitutional text.
In the end, the authors distill the Framers’ experience down to five lessons that we must understand to make our system work:
1. everyone is selfish.
2. government is the steam valve of society.
3. political process is more important than product.
4. the strength of consensus is directly related to the breadth of representation and the depth of deliberation.
5. every interest is a special interest.
Too many people assume that because our Constitution has weathered storms before it will weather all the storms that may come. This book is a warning that our constitutional form of government is only as strong as our shared commitment to it. If we don’t understand it well enough, or if we value results over process to the point that we want to short-circuit the Constitution’s safeguards, we could see it come crashing down.
The authors argue rather convincingly that the reason the Constitution has worked is because of our Constitutional Conscience – a set of beliefs about the Constitution that keeps us together. They define that Constitutional Conscience as the willingness to settle disputes within the confines of government (rather than by force), to compromise, and to respect the constitutional process even when dissatisfied with the result.
For a short time at the beginning of the Revolution, Americans thought that officials seeking the common good would be enough for good government. They quickly learned that this was not true – their army almost starved in the field and it was a miracle that they won the war, all because the members of Congress and state officials could not put their own narrow interests aside. It became clear that Americans, like all people, are selfish. There is no way to change that – the best a government can do is to harness that selfishness. That is what the Constitution did. It set up a system that would protect liberty by setting interest against interest within a framework. For laws to be made, people with different interests would have to give and take and compromise. That conflict within consensus – people fighting for their own desires within an agreed framework – has worked well.
The authors give a very good brief account of the Framers’ theories of government and how they came to form a constitution that checked power and made consensus necessary to make laws. They also give historical examples of how the Constitution survived different crises, starting with ratification and the push for amendments, and including Nixon’s resignation.
They also argue – and it is crucial to understand this – that even the text of the Constitution doesn’t matter if it conflicts with the existing consensus. For example, the Civil War amendments were adopted without consensus support, and they were ignored until a consensus emerged to enforce them. In other words, our Constitutional Conscience may matter more than our constitutional text.
In the end, the authors distill the Framers’ experience down to five lessons that we must understand to make our system work:
1. everyone is selfish.
2. government is the steam valve of society.
3. political process is more important than product.
4. the strength of consensus is directly related to the breadth of representation and the depth of deliberation.
5. every interest is a special interest.
Too many people assume that because our Constitution has weathered storms before it will weather all the storms that may come. This book is a warning that our constitutional form of government is only as strong as our shared commitment to it. If we don’t understand it well enough, or if we value results over process to the point that we want to short-circuit the Constitution’s safeguards, we could see it come crashing down.
November 1, 2019
This book is a helpful reminder and reflection on the past of America. In this work, the authors go very in depth on the construction of the constitution and how it came to be today. “Constitutional Conscience” is referenced many times in this book. The idea is that we all have this “Constitutional Conscience”, which is the belief that with problems we can resolve them within the government’s processes. Beliefs like this give more insight into what The Framers originally intended. The Framers faced many hardships forming the constitution. They tried to instill government processes in which people could make compromises. Also, they tried to form the best government in which the people of America’s ideals were met.
Some might read this book and think that it’s politically biased or is very argumentative. I believe it sometimes may seem that way because an author wants to instill a lesson or a something-to-remember factor. Besides that, overall, I really liked this book. I learned a couple valuable lessons about the needs of a government itself. Such as people working together and a government being only as strong as people make it out to be. This book pushed the importance of government in America. I’m glad that I got to be educated on the history of America.
Some might read this book and think that it’s politically biased or is very argumentative. I believe it sometimes may seem that way because an author wants to instill a lesson or a something-to-remember factor. Besides that, overall, I really liked this book. I learned a couple valuable lessons about the needs of a government itself. Such as people working together and a government being only as strong as people make it out to be. This book pushed the importance of government in America. I’m glad that I got to be educated on the history of America.
August 30, 2015
Having just recently finished Joseph Ellis's excellent "The Quartet," which examines the revolution that takes place in American political thought from 1783 under the Articles of Confederation to the adoption of the Constitution in 1789, this book may have suffered from comparisons. Ultimately, this is not fair, as they are different books.
While Ellis's book focuses solely on the history of the period (and the impact of Washington, Madison, Hamilton, and Jay -hence, the "Quartet"), Lane's book is both more encompassing, going into the amendments to the Constitution over the years, and more argument, appealing to what he repeatedly calls the "Constitutional Conscience." At the nuts and bolts of what Lane argues for, and for which I agree, is that the Framers of the Constitution understood people would not act for public virtue - that such was tried under the Articles of Confederation and during the American Revolutionary War, and it didn't work. So the system they devised tried to restrain the self-interested actions of individuals and factions and channel it, through checks and balances, into governance.
I think Lane catches this important facet of the U.S. Constitution and what the Constitutional Convention sought to achieve and avoid. He also understands that underlying all of this is the premise that people will ultimately compromise, that they won't conflate their private self-interest with public good. Lane, writing in 2007, argues that this conflation has happened in American politics since Reagan left office. Lane argues that liberals, following in the realm of FDR, have forgotten that those New Deal policies were the result of broad consensus, not mandate. Similarly, Lane argues that conservatives have embraced and idealized Reagan's philosophy and rhetoric, but have forgotten his pragmatism.
As the book was written in 2007, I wonder what Lane's take would be on the Obama Presidency, particularly the interactions between President Obama and the Republican Congressional leaders the last several years. In any event, I would think that the last several years seem to support Lane's premise that we have forgotten the "fires of compromise" that our Constitution was "forged" in, and as result, have been unable to reach compromise in pursuit of public good and governance today.
Easy to read, interesting, and thought provoking, but ultimately more argument than history. Depending on what you are looking for when reading, that can be both good and bad.
While Ellis's book focuses solely on the history of the period (and the impact of Washington, Madison, Hamilton, and Jay -hence, the "Quartet"), Lane's book is both more encompassing, going into the amendments to the Constitution over the years, and more argument, appealing to what he repeatedly calls the "Constitutional Conscience." At the nuts and bolts of what Lane argues for, and for which I agree, is that the Framers of the Constitution understood people would not act for public virtue - that such was tried under the Articles of Confederation and during the American Revolutionary War, and it didn't work. So the system they devised tried to restrain the self-interested actions of individuals and factions and channel it, through checks and balances, into governance.
I think Lane catches this important facet of the U.S. Constitution and what the Constitutional Convention sought to achieve and avoid. He also understands that underlying all of this is the premise that people will ultimately compromise, that they won't conflate their private self-interest with public good. Lane, writing in 2007, argues that this conflation has happened in American politics since Reagan left office. Lane argues that liberals, following in the realm of FDR, have forgotten that those New Deal policies were the result of broad consensus, not mandate. Similarly, Lane argues that conservatives have embraced and idealized Reagan's philosophy and rhetoric, but have forgotten his pragmatism.
As the book was written in 2007, I wonder what Lane's take would be on the Obama Presidency, particularly the interactions between President Obama and the Republican Congressional leaders the last several years. In any event, I would think that the last several years seem to support Lane's premise that we have forgotten the "fires of compromise" that our Constitution was "forged" in, and as result, have been unable to reach compromise in pursuit of public good and governance today.
Easy to read, interesting, and thought provoking, but ultimately more argument than history. Depending on what you are looking for when reading, that can be both good and bad.
July 5, 2015
Background information: I am 22-year-old recent college graduate who will be starting law school in late August of this year. I received this book as a gift from the dean of my law school, Eric Lane, who, as you can see, is a co-author of this book. The book is not mandatory reading. However, I love to read, so...
The book, true to its title, is a brief overview of the history of our Constitution, as well as the conflicts and compromises that have arisen from it. The first third of the book is a history of the Constitution, with emphasis on Madison's efforts. It does also discuss the efforts from other Founding Fathers, including Hamilton, Jefferson, and Franklin. The latter 2/3 of the book focus on the conflicts surrounding the Constitution, and how various political leaders from different time periods in America's history (the book spans from 1787-2007) have dealt with the public's changing views on the government.
If you are interested in American history, the Constitution, or are generally a history nerd like me, you will enjoy this book. My only gripe is that there was a clear political bias during the authors' discussion of Reagan. However, in contrast to this, my favorite part of the book was the discussion on how America desperately needs a revival in civics education. Any of my friends and family have heard me scream about how the people of this country are out of tune with their political leaders and democracy in general, which is very much in part due to there being piss-poor civics education in K-12. If civics were taught K-12, the people of this country would make more informed (voting) decisions in regards to their political leaders, both federal and local. People will also be privy the games politicians in Washington play.
In conclusion, I recommend this book. Thanks for the gift, Dean Lane!
The book, true to its title, is a brief overview of the history of our Constitution, as well as the conflicts and compromises that have arisen from it. The first third of the book is a history of the Constitution, with emphasis on Madison's efforts. It does also discuss the efforts from other Founding Fathers, including Hamilton, Jefferson, and Franklin. The latter 2/3 of the book focus on the conflicts surrounding the Constitution, and how various political leaders from different time periods in America's history (the book spans from 1787-2007) have dealt with the public's changing views on the government.
If you are interested in American history, the Constitution, or are generally a history nerd like me, you will enjoy this book. My only gripe is that there was a clear political bias during the authors' discussion of Reagan. However, in contrast to this, my favorite part of the book was the discussion on how America desperately needs a revival in civics education. Any of my friends and family have heard me scream about how the people of this country are out of tune with their political leaders and democracy in general, which is very much in part due to there being piss-poor civics education in K-12. If civics were taught K-12, the people of this country would make more informed (voting) decisions in regards to their political leaders, both federal and local. People will also be privy the games politicians in Washington play.
In conclusion, I recommend this book. Thanks for the gift, Dean Lane!
January 31, 2008
This is a short read about the structure of the Constitution and what the authors call the "Constitutional Conscience." The book makes the case that the real accomplishment of the constitution is that it tames the passions of various factions by forcing them to compromise. This process helps prevent the populace from acting rashly or bringing about a tyranny of a majority. To the authors, the spirit of compromise is at the soul of this great charter.
I really liked this book. It's a different perspective on governmental processes that stresses that when some see the government as gridlocked and unable to act, what's really happening is that the system is working properly. It's kind of counterintuitive, but the authors make the point that people only see gridlock when they are not getting something they want. We need to be reminded that just because we think something is a good idea, not everyone will agree.
I think progressives have a harder time with that because they view many of their causes, such as increasing the welfare state in any of a number of ways, as serving the public good. Well, other parts of the public might not feel those ideas are good at all and do not want to be subject to them. The framers devised a system to help prevent one group from imposing their will on another by forcing them to come to some sort of agreement. In their eyes, compromise was not a means to an end, it was an end in and of itself.
I really liked this book. It's a different perspective on governmental processes that stresses that when some see the government as gridlocked and unable to act, what's really happening is that the system is working properly. It's kind of counterintuitive, but the authors make the point that people only see gridlock when they are not getting something they want. We need to be reminded that just because we think something is a good idea, not everyone will agree.
I think progressives have a harder time with that because they view many of their causes, such as increasing the welfare state in any of a number of ways, as serving the public good. Well, other parts of the public might not feel those ideas are good at all and do not want to be subject to them. The framers devised a system to help prevent one group from imposing their will on another by forcing them to come to some sort of agreement. In their eyes, compromise was not a means to an end, it was an end in and of itself.
December 14, 2009
This short book delivers a timely reminder of how the American system of government, although frustratingly slow at reaching compromises, was purposely developed by the Constitution's founders in 1787. After a decade of seeing their belief in Americans' ability to sublimate their individual selfish desires in favor of the greater societal good disproven by the behavior of the country's citizens, the founders gathered to write a Constitution that incorporated a recognition that individuals act in their own self interests into the formation of America's unique form of goverment. Bipartisan critques of the subsequent efforts by members of the executive and legislative branch of government to dismantle the "Constitutional Conscience" in the name of streamlining decision making are offered as a warning of how easily we could lose the democratic republic that has so far outlasted all other forms of popular government.
December 9, 2013
A defense of the Constitution as establishing a deliberative and representative PROCESS. The authors present the current gridlock in the American political system not as a result of the Constitutional system, but rather as a result of people unwilling to compromise and find common ground. They present the Constitution in historical context, ranging from the failure of the Articles of Confederation and what was happening in the American colonies between 1776 and 1787, to some of the key debates of the framers, to the battle over slavery leading to the Civil War, to the issues of the Progressive Era, the Great Depression, civil rights, women's rights, and up to more recent attempts to short-circuit the constitutional process. The authors do not provide an interpretation of the Constitution, nor is the book a history of Supreme Court decisions.
September 17, 2008
Compromise is key. They leave out the story of the 3/5ths compromise. I would have liked to hear their take.
I didn't finish reading it. 'Nough said.
I didn't finish reading it. 'Nough said.
October 1, 2010
A must-read! Especially for President Obama, Speaker of the House Pelosi, etc. And for Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, and even Jon Stewart.
December 30, 2014
Read for class. It was an interesting read and covered the constitution. Let's just say I learned a lot and the friction we see today in Washington isn't that out of place. It was designed that way.
May 28, 2010
Couldn't finish reading this, it was days overdue at the library. :(
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews