Gordon S. Wood Weighs in on Akhil Reed Amar’s Born Equal: Remaking America’s Constitution, 1840-1920

On September 16, Yale Law professor Akhil Reed Amar published Born Equal: Remaking America’s Constitution, 1840-1920, the second volume of an in-progress three-volume history of America’s constitutional project from 1760 to the present day. The first volume, The Words That Made Us: America’s Constitutional Conversation, 1760-1840, was published in 2021. I much liked both volumes (more on that below), and I’m delighted to report that America’s greatest historian of the Founding era, Gordon S. Wood, has recently publicly praised them as well.

Wood wrote a detailed review of Born Equal that he read aloud at a September 19 Yale Law School conference on originalism that I organized; Wood labeled Born Equal “wonderful” and went on to say that,

[I]t is the most extraordinary kind of history that I have read…. [Akhil] has paid tribute to the power of equality in our political and constitutional lives as no other historian ever has.

The complete transcript of Wood’s glowing remarks may be found here, and may well be published in more polished form in the months ahead.

Kirkus Reviews awarded Born Equal a rare and much-coveted Kirkus Star and The Wall Street Journal ran a rave review by Adam J. White. The New York Times review by Jeff Shesol was generally favorable, but criticized Akhil’s staunch defense of originalism. Read Born Equal and decide for yourself!

As I mentioned, I liked both volumes very much. Back in 2021 I described The Words That Made Us as:

[A] masterpiece [that] reveals Akhil Amar to be the greatest constitutional historian of his generation. He brilliantly shows, for example, how George Washington got everything he wanted at the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention, while geniuses like Madison, Hamilton, Wilson, and Franklin all came up short. This book will be the canonical account of the birth of our Constitution and our early years as a nation for decades to come.

And here is what I said about Born Equal:

Akhil Reed Amar is the most accomplished scholar of his age cohort in both law and history because he writes superb books like Born Equal, which will change the minds of everyone across the political spectrum from Federalist Society members to Bernie Sanders leftists. The history told in this book goes to the very core of what it means to be an American citizen and to understanding our Constitution. Amar knows, that for all our faults, the United States is, as President Ronald Reagan called it, “A Shining City on a Hill.” This book brilliantly proves that Ronald Reagan was right! Born Equal is one of the most important books ever written.

Akhil and I have been close friends for decades, and we have co-taught an originalism seminar at Yale Law School for many years. I’m glad that others share my view as well.