In her one-volume political history of the United States, Jill Lepore explores the founding truths of the American experiment as articulated by Jefferson ―political equality, natural rights, and the sovereignty of the people and seeks to answer the question: has the nation, and democracy itself, delivered on that promise?

Danielle Allen argues that America has yet to complete the transition to political friendship and trust that Brown v. Board of Education offered. Combining readings of philosophers and theorists with personal reflections on race politics in Chicago, Allen proposes practical techniques of citizenship to overcome the fossilized distrust among us.