
American Covenant
How the Constitution Unified Our Nation—and Could Again
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Narrated by:
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Leon Nixon
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By:
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Yuval Levin
About this listen
A top conservative scholar reveals the Constitution’s remarkable power to repair our broken civic culture, rescue our malfunctioning politics, and unify a fractious America
Common ground is hard to find in today’s politics. In a society teeming with irreconcilable political perspectives, many people have grown frustrated under a system of government that constantly demands compromise. More and more on both the right and the left have come to blame the Constitution for the resulting discord. But the Constitution is not the problem we face; it is the solution.
Blending engaging history with lucid analysis, conservative scholar Yuval Levin’s American Covenant recovers the Constitution’s true genius and reveals how it charts a path to repairing America’s fault lines. Uncovering the framers’ sophisticated grasp of political division, Levin showcases the Constitution’s exceptional power to facilitate constructive disagreement, negotiate resolutions to disputes, and forge unity in a fractured society. Clear-eyed about the ways that contemporary politics have malfunctioned, Levin also offers practical solutions for reforming those aspects of the constitutional order that have gone awry.
Hopeful, insightful, and rooted in the best of our political tradition, American Covenant celebrates the Constitution’s remarkable power to bind together a diverse society, reassuring us that a less divided future is within our grasp.
©2024 Yuval Levin (P)2024 Basic BooksListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“Because we Americans have forgotten how to disagree with one another, forgotten how to collaborate and compromise, Yuval Levin contends, in clear and persuasive prose, that the United States Constitution offers us a welcome framework for promoting our desperately needed national unity. Indeed, no one has ever explained so authoritatively and so judiciously the significance of the Constitution for the health of our civic life as Levin has in this brilliant book. It is an extraordinary achievement.”—Gordon Wood, author of The Creation of the American Republic
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Democracy and Solidarity
- On the Cultural Roots of America's Political Crisis
- By: James Davison Hunter
- Narrated by: Sean Patrick Hopkins
- Length: 17 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Liberal democracy in America has always contained contradictions—most notably, a noble but abstract commitment to freedom, justice, and equality that, tragically, has seldom been realized in practice. While these contradictions have caused dissent and even violence, there was always an underlying and evolving solidarity drawn from the cultural resources of America’s “hybrid Enlightenment”. James Davison Hunter, who introduced the concept of “culture wars” 30 years ago, tells us in this new book that those historic sources of national solidarity have now largely dissolved.
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A History of How We Became Polarized
- By Frank on 05-09-24
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The Conservative Sensibility
- By: George F. Will
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 24 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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The Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist's "astonishing" and "enthralling" New York Times best seller and Notable Book about how the Founders' belief in natural rights created a great American political tradition (Booklist) - "easily one of the best books on American Conservatism ever written" (Jonah Goldberg).
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Conservativism explained and in practice
- By kevinf on 06-13-19
By: George F. Will
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Our Ancient Faith
- Lincoln, Democracy, and the American Experiment
- By: Allen C. Guelzo
- Narrated by: Justin Price
- Length: 5 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Abraham Lincoln grappled with the greatest crisis of democracy that has ever confronted the United States. While many books have been written about his temperament, judgment, and steady hand in guiding the country through the Civil War, we know less about Lincoln’s penetrating ideas and beliefs about democracy, which were every bit as important as his character in sustaining him through the crisis. Allen C. Guelzo, one of America’s foremost experts on Lincoln, captures the president’s firmly held belief that democracy was the greatest political achievement in human history.
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Tremendous and timely
- By Robert V. Vecchi on 03-20-24
By: Allen C. Guelzo
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The Decadent Society
- How We Became a Victim of Our Own Success
- By: Ross Douthat
- Narrated by: Ross Douthat
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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The era of the coronavirus has tested America, and our leaders and institutions have conspicuously failed. That failure shouldn’t be surprising: Beneath social-media frenzy and reality-television politics, our era’s deep truths are elite incompetence, cultural exhaustion, and the flight from reality into fantasy. The Decadent Society explains what happens when a powerful society ceases advancing - how the combination of wealth and technological proficiency with economic stagnation, political stalemate, and demographic decline creates a unique civilizational crisis.
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Another Liberal Arts Intellectual who does not rea
- By Trebla on 03-24-20
By: Ross Douthat
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Liberal Fascism
- The Secret History of the American Left
- By: Jonah Goldberg
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 15 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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"Fascists", "Brownshirts", "jackbooted stormtroopers" - such are the insults typically hurled at conservatives by their liberal opponents. Calling someone a fascist is the fastest way to shut them up, defining their views as beyond the political pale. But who are the real fascists in our midst?
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Great book
- By Mark on 05-10-08
By: Jonah Goldberg
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The Right
- The Hundred-Year War for American Conservatism
- By: Matthew Continetti
- Narrated by: Carl Sayles
- Length: 14 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Matthew Continetti gives a sweeping account of movement conservatism’s evolution, from the Progressive Era through the present. He tells the story of how conservatism began as networks of intellectuals, developing and institutionalizing a vision that grew over time, until they began to buckle under new pressures, resembling national populist movements. Drawing out the tensions between the desire for mainstream acceptance and the pull of extremism, Continetti argues that the more one studies conservatism’s past, the more one becomes convinced of its future.
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Authors bias shows
- By Mary Lou Vodar on 04-30-22
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The Constitution of Knowledge
- A Defense of Truth
- By: Jonathan Rauch
- Narrated by: Traber Burns
- Length: 12 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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In this pathbreaking book, Jonathan Rauch reaches back to the parallel 18th-century developments of liberal democracy and science to explain what he calls the “Constitution of Knowledge” - our social system for turning disagreement into truth. By explicating the Constitution of Knowledge and probing the war on reality, Rauch arms defenders of truth with a clearer understanding of what they must protect, why they must do - and how they can do it.
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A really good book
- By Will Blakey on 06-25-21
By: Jonathan Rauch
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Why Liberalism Failed
- By: Patrick J. Deneen
- Narrated by: Brian Holsopple
- Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Of the three dominant ideologies of the 20th century - fascism, communism, and liberalism - only the last remains. This has created a peculiar situation in which liberalism's proponents tend to forget that it is an ideology and not the natural end-state of human political evolution. As Patrick Deneen argues in this provocative book, liberalism is built on a foundation of contradictions.
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a fine idea stuffed in a dead horse and beat
- By David on 09-26-18
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Regime Change
- Toward a Postliberal Future
- By: Patrick J. Deneen
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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From Notre Dame professor and author of Why Liberalism Failed comes a provocative call for replacing the tyranny of the self-serving liberal elite with conservative leaders aligned with the interests of the working class.
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A New Political Vision
- By SMW on 06-14-23
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Dawn's Early Light
- Taking Back Washington to Save America
- By: Kevin Roberts
- Narrated by: Kevin Roberts, Jim Seybert
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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America is on the brink of destruction. A corrupt and incompetent elite has uprooted our way of life and is brainwashing the next generation. Many so-called conservatives are as culpable as their progressive counterparts. In this ambitious and provocative book, Heritage Foundation President Dr. Kevin Roberts announces the arrival of a New Conservative Movement. His message is simple: Global elites—your time is up.
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Your 1 stars mean nothing, I’ve seen what makes you cheer
- By Amazon Customer on 04-02-25
By: Kevin Roberts
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We Have Never Been Woke
- The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite
- By: Musa al-Gharbi
- Narrated by: Musa al-Gharbi
- Length: 14 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Society has never been more egalitarian—in theory. Prejudice is taboo, and diversity is strongly valued. At the same time, social and economic inequality have exploded. In We Have Never Been Woke, Musa al-Gharbi argues that these trends are closely related, each tied to the rise of a new elite—the symbolic capitalists.
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Insightful view into “symbolic capitalists”
- By Paul on 10-13-24
By: Musa al-Gharbi
What listeners say about American Covenant
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- M J Clarke
- 07-31-24
Required reading
The most mature and balanced analysis of the underlying philosophy of the Constitution that one will ever read. Not pedantic, not rote or classroom-ish, but analytical, with frequent references to the Federalist Papers. One comes away with a more thorough understanding of what the Constitution was intended to accomplish. This book provides the tools to understand current obsessions with partisan and ideologically driven efforts to “right the arc” based solely on passion; a guide to achieving unity through process, not conquest.
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- Jim Tucker
- 09-25-24
Profound.
How can we help our fellow citizens to embrace the wisdom of this book? Only by becoming living chapters of it.
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- Louis Macareo
- 06-30-24
An absolute must read for haters of "the other side" and for everyone else.
Even if you fancy yourself a bit of a Constitutional scholar, this book is a must read. Levin puts forward what should not be, but unfortunately is, yet another misunderstood or unknown genius of the Constitution and it's founders, namely that it was designed to manage disagreement and to force us to live together. When men are free, they will disagree and upon that, we can unite. Unity does not come from total victory over the other side, but in our action where decisions are made by the majority but never with becoming untethered to the minority. it is not an efficient system, nor is it meant to be. Those that would thwart its structure out of frustration having to deal with those who disagree, are placing the country on a path of destruction. We must accept all victories as partial and fleeting even as our concept of individual freedom and inclusively grow. Really a very well-grounded book in the founders' thinking and writing. Educational for the mind and soul and the prescription for the anger and divisiveness presently affliction the nation.
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- REB2BPA
- 01-17-25
Great discussion of the founders ideas in writing the constitution
it helped me understand what we need to do to heal our country's divisions.
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- Golden
- 12-28-24
Phenomenal
One of the best books on politics that I have ever read in my entire life. Recommend for anyone who loves the United States of America.
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- Stanley Osekavage
- 01-21-25
Thoroughly educational
in these times, this is a needed review and summary of our Constitution, and it's multiple constructs. Its conclusion will hopefully bring us back to "We the people"..., and functional governance.
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- John Bridgeland
- 06-22-24
Unity in Problem-Solving
Yuval Levin’s masterful book points the way forward in fostering a spirit of public problem-solving across our differences.
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- gr_eg
- 07-20-24
Disagree Better
Levin makes it clear that the reason our constitution “isn’t working” is because we are not operating our government as designed. Our system was not designed to elect a monarch or allow a slim majority to change everything. Therefore, it is up to us to hold Congress accountable to do the job it was designed to do. Deliberate, compromise, and lead, instead of loudly pointing to what the president should do.
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- D. E.
- 02-23-25
The path back to political sanity
Yuval Levin is perhaps the sneakiest “most important” political voice of this early century. While other pundits are yelling and pointing fingers at perceived foes, he’s often the lone voice of reason. He’s also the rare writer that people from both sides of the aisle will quote at length.
This book is timely and directly on point for today’s raucous political environment. It’s “calm down” hands from a trusted source.
In this book Yuval is, for lack of a better comparison, Charley Steiner in the classic ESPN Y2K commercial, necktie around his forehead and lamp in hand, shouting “Follow me! Follow me to freedom!”
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