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WHY WORDS?
Amar, Akhil Reed
Amar, Akhil Reed
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Amar 2.pdf
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Abstract
What’s new in my new book, The Words That Made Us?
What’s missing? What’s next? If my tale is anywhere close to
correct, what tales told by other narrators must be rejected or
revised?
At heart, the biggest news is that a book such as this now
exists, as it did not before—a book that brings together between a
single set of covers the main constitutional episodes of the fateful era
in which America became America.
As I write the words of this postscript, in the late summer of
2020, I am frankly worried about the widespread constitutional
illiteracy that surrounds me, illiteracy of young and old, left and
right. A nation that does not understand its history is like a person
who suffers amnesia. Without a strong memory of one’s own past,
how can a person live a meaningful life? Without a deep
understanding of our collective constitutional past, how can
Americans live together? In 1860–1861, South Carolinians forgot
what South Carolinians had in fact plainly agreed to in 1787–1788:
an indissoluble union. And the war came.