The Constitution and the Bill of Rights

Conspiracy theories are not new in the United States, but over the years they have taken on a life and power of their own. How did conspiracy theories become so entrenched in the American mind? Why is it that, even if we don't entirely believe them, we like them? Our guests today ...  Show more

What did Jefferson mean when he wrote about a "wall of separation" between the church and the state? How have we interpreted the pair of clauses in the 1st Amendment regarding religion? And what is the current relationship between church and state when it comes to the Supreme Cou ...  Show more

David talks to historian Linda Colley about her new global history of written constitutions: the paper documents that made and remade the modern world. From Corsica to Pitcairn, from Mexico to Japan, it's an amazing story of war and peace, violence, imagination and fear. Recorded ...  Show more

Something like 60% of Americans have never fully read the US Constitution. How did such a short document become one of the most important pieces of writing in human history -- and why are some parts of it arguably ridiculous? Ben, Noel and Max welcome returning guest AJ Jacobs, a ...  Show more

In the premier episode of “Constitutional,” we go back in time to that hot Philadelphia summer in 1787 when a group of revolutionary Americans debated, drank and together drafted the U.S. Constitution. 

The Constitution is like America's secular bible, our sacred founding document. In her play, What the Constitution Means to Me, Heidi Schreck goes through a process of discovering what the document is really about – who wrote it, who it was for, who it protected and who it didn't ...  Show more