Overview

Our idea of the Founders' America and its values is not true. We are not the heirs of the Founders, but we can be the heirs of Reconstruction and its vision for equality. There's a common story we tell about America: that our fundamental values as a country were stated in the Declaration of Independence, fought for in the Revolution, and made law in the Constitution. But, with the country increasingly divided, this story isn't working for us anymore--what's more, it's not even true. As Kermit Roosevelt argues in this eye-opening reinterpretation of the American story, our fundamental values, particularly equality, are not part of the vision of the Founders. Instead, they were stated in Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and were the hope of Reconstruction, when it was possible to envision the emergence of the nation committed to liberty and equality. We face a dilemma these days. We want to be honest about our history and the racism and oppression that Americans have both inflicted and endured. But we want to be proud of our country, too. In The Nation That Never Was, Roosevelt shows how we can do both those things by realizing we're not the country we thought we were. Reconstruction, Roosevelt argues, was not a fulfillment of the ideals of the Founding but rather a repudiation: we modern Americans are not the heirs of the Founders but of the people who overthrew and destroyed that political order. This alternate understanding of American identity opens the door to a new understanding of ourselves and our story, and ultimately to a better America. America today is not the Founders' America, but it can be Lincoln's America. Roosevelt offers a powerful and inspirational rethinking of our country's history and uncovers a shared past that we can be proud to claim and use as a foundation to work toward a country that fully embodies equality for all.

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Reviews

A searching history of the legal and ideological basis of American identity...A novel way of reading our founding documents and revising them as both law- and nation-building myths. -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review) A truly extraordinary book...He persuasively argues that we must liberate ourselves from our sentimentalized attachment to 'the Founders' and even to the Declaration of Independence, which he audaciously reinterprets. -- Sanford Levinson, author of Our Undemocratic Constitution Astute textual analysis, careful historical research, and a deep commitment to social justice make this an inspiring reexamination of America's past. -- Publishers Weekly In this brilliant book, Roosevelt asks us to trade in our standard story of America...for a different, more complicated, and yet more hopeful story of Reconstruction. -- Jack M. Balkin, author of The Cycles of Constitutional Time Roosevelt argues that...the history we need to know to move forward as a country is that of secession, Reconstruction, and the post-Reconstruction era. -- Jane Dailey, author of White Fright

Author Information

Kermit Roosevelt III is a professor of constitutional law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. A former law clerk to Supreme Court Justice David Souter, he is the author of The Myth of Judicial Activism, as well as two novels, Allegiance and In the Shadow of the Law. Kermit Roosevelt III is a professor of constitutional law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. A former law clerk to Supreme Court Justice David Souter, he is the author of The Myth of Judicial Activism, as well as two novels, Allegiance and In the Shadow of the Law.

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