![]() ![]() They found not a historical text that required memorization, but an animating force that could and did transform the course of their everyday lives.In an "uncommonly elegant, incisive, and often poetic primer on America’s cardinal text," Our Declaration now brings these insights to the general reader, illuminating the "three great themes of the Declaration: equality, liberty, and the abiding power of language" (David M. Keenly aware that the Declaration is riddled with contradictions-liberating some while subjugating slaves and Native Americans-Allen and her students nonetheless came to see that the Declaration makes a coherent and riveting argument about equality. ![]() ![]() Troubled by the fact that so few Americans actually know what it says, Danielle Allen, a political philosopher renowned for her work on justice and citizenship, set out to explore the arguments of the Declaration, reading it with both adult night students and University of Chicago undergraduates. Yet despite its paramount importance, the Declaration, curiously, is rarely read from start to finish-much less understood. Written in 1776, it is the most profound document in the history of government since the Magna Carta, signed nearly 800 years ago in 1215. ![]() In just 1,337 words, the Declaration of Independence altered the course of history. ![]()
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