A Country with No Name: Tales from the Constitution

By Sebastian De Grazia

Book Overview

In an imaginative and masterful work of history, Pulitzer Prize-winner Sebastian de Grazia has created two memorable characters. Nineteen-year-old Oliver Huggins is in for the tutorial of his life. For twelve afternoons, Claire St. John, a beguiling British graduate student, will reveal to him the untold story of American Constitutional history. Her means: the Socratic method. Her message: that the Constitution was itself unconstitutional, and that its authors' inability to choose a name for the republic muddied the document's meaning for the future ahead.

Through these tutorials de Grazia passes in review our most revered heroes--Jefferson, Washington, Marshall, Lincoln, and Thoreau--revealing the complexity of their characters. St. John's unsettling tales arouse more in her disciple than intellectual curiosity. Their relationship unrolls in so humorous and seductive a way that only a musty academic could object. Satirical, intelligent, and sure-handed, A Country with No Name combines history and literature, politics and law to reinvigorate our best traditions.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0679744223
• ISBN13: 9780679744221
• Release Date: February 1999
• Publisher: Vintage
• Length: 432 Pages
• Weight: 0.91 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

The Constitution is best seen from a distance

The Constitution may not be what you think it is. This book examines the history and meaning of the Constitution through tales presented, by a young English woman, in the fashion of Scheherezade (of Arabian Nights fame). Sounds strange, but it works remarkably well. I would highly recommend the book to any - American. We could all use a good healthy dose of Constitutional tutoring and this particular lesson is taught with style.