The Annotated U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence
by Jack N. Rakove
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Description
Here in a beautifully bound cloth gift edition are the two founding documents of the United States of America: the Declaration of Independence (1776), our great revolutionary manifesto, and the Constitution (1787-88), in which "We the People" forged a new nation and built the framework for our federal republic. Together with the Bill of Rights and the Civil War amendments, these documents constitute what James Madison called our "political scriptures," and have come to define us as a people. show more Now a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian serves as a guide to these texts, providing historical contexts and offering interpretive commentary. show lessTags
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Member Recommendations
United States of America Founding Documents - Declaration of Independence, Paris Treaty of 1783, Articles of Confederation, US Constitution, Bill of Rights, ... and under the U.S. Constitution by United States of America
M_Clark Before reading the annotated version, it is nice to be able to read this edition of the documents uninterrupted by the annotations. it is also useful to read documents like the Articles of Confederation in order to see the parallels to the US Constitution.
Member Reviews
This is a very interesting and useful book that is unfortunately marred by being housed in a poor e-book edition. For example, the e-book edition does not include any illustrations. Where there is supposed to be an illustration, it includes a note telling you to see the print edition. Also, as an annotation of these key documents, it includes each section of the document only after the annotations for the text. It would be more useful to have the text first followed by the annotations. Finally, the original and the annotations are distinguished from another by use of different fonts resulting in an unpleasant optical experience. This book would be rated much higher if it had a better e-book editor. My recommendation would be for people show more to read the print edition.
Although the annotated version is over 350 pages, I felt hungry to know more about each article and how it came to be. show less
Although the annotated version is over 350 pages, I felt hungry to know more about each article and how it came to be. show less
I found its treatment of the amendments dubious. It had not been proofread very well, one sentence was just repeated.
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Author Information

18+ Works 2,596 Members
Jack Rakove is the William Robertson Coe Professor of History and American Studies and a professor of political science at Stanford University. He is the author of, among other books, Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1997.
Classifications
- Genres
- Politics and Government, Nonfiction, History, General Nonfiction
- DDC/MDS
- 342.7302 — Society, government, & culture Law U.S. Constitution - Bill of Rights, Amendments North America Constitutional law--United States Basic instruments of Government, the US constitution
- LCC
- KF4527 .A56 — Law Law of the United States Law of the United States (Federal) Constitutional law Texts of the Constitution
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 137
- Popularity
- 238,528
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (3.00)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 5
- ASINs
- 1
























































