Course Introduction | America's Written Constitution with Akhil Reed Amar

The Constitution is about 8,000 words, start to finish. Akhil Reed Amar explains how to read all of it, in textual order, and what to look for in the one sentence that opens it. This introductory lecture lays out the plan for the course: the Preamble, then Articles I through VII, then the amendments in the order they were added, from the Bill of Rights through Reconstruction, the Progressive Era, and the modern amendments of the 1960s and after. Amar names the three themes he will track throughout: how democratic the document was in its own historical context, how pro-slavery it also was and how close that contradiction came to destroying it, and how much of it was driven by national security and geostrategy. He introduces the companion book, America's Constitution: A Biography, discusses the course image drawn from the National Constitution Center, and closes with the assignment: read the text, and reread the Preamble. Chapters: 00:00 What this course is and who it is for 02:18 Working through the text in order 04:18 From Reconstruction to the modern amendments 06:21 Eight thousand words, and what they leave out 07:26 The unwritten Constitution, previewed 10:31 The companion books 14:11 Democracy, slavery, and national security 17:12 The course image and the Preamble 20:45 Your assignment Learning objectives: After watching, you'll be able to: - Summarize the structure of the written Constitution in textual order - Identify the three themes Amar tracks: democracy, slavery, and national security - Distinguish the written Constitution from the unwritten principles built on it - Explain why the Preamble carries weight out of proportion to its length - Formulate your own answer to whether the document created an indissoluble union 📺 Watch the full playlist on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCq6-l8oFuvk 🎓 Enroll on Coursera for assessments and a certificate: https://www.coursera.org/learn/written-constitution 🌐 Explore more learning opportunities on Yale Online: https://online.yale.edu/courses/americas-written-constitution