Empires and Constitutions explores the history of the US Constitution in its global context. Organized into three units which are each broken down into short chapters by topic, the book focuses on the western tradition and traces the rise and fall of the imperial model of government starting with the Roman Empire. The case of the U.S., First as a colony of Great Britain and later as an independent nation state which expands across North America, is studied in terms of how new constitutional models challenged old imperial forms of governance.
Each unit begins with a short introduction which situates the primary source readings that follow in the historical moment. The documents begin with short descriptions about the author in his/her time period and briefly summarize the excerpt. A guide on how to read primary sources is included at the end of the introduction. Discussion questions are included at the end of each chapter.