Jill Lepore on the US constitution, originalism … and Madison’s nose

‘Young people, whatever political persuasion, just don’t have a lot of sense of possibility as a generation,’ Jill Lepore says. Photograph: Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard University

In her new book, the Harvard history professor and New Yorker writer Jill Lepore makes a 600-page case for the US constitution as a living document, made to be amended by each generation.

Lepore said her book, We the People, is also “a deep historical critique of originalism”, the conservative legal theory that dominates the supreme court, deep political polarization having rendered constitutional amendments all but politically impossible.