We the People: The 500-Year Battle Over Who Is American

"We the People." The Constitution begins with those deceptively simple words, but how do Americans define that "We"? In We the People, Ben Railton argues that throughout our history two competing yet interconnected concepts have battled to define our national identity and community: exclusionary and inclusive visions of who gets to be an American.

From the earliest moments of European contact with indigenous peoples, through the Revolutionary period's debates on African American slavery, 19t...