The Making and Breaking of the American Constitution

Mark Peterson's book examines the American constitution as an evolving relationship among land, people, and written law, tracing origins to the Domesday Book and medieval English practices.

He argues the framers built a constitution suited to territorial expansion and an agrarian society, which increasingly failed to fit an urban, industrializing nation.

The book highlights how constitutional structures enabled settler colonization and dispossession of Indigenous peoples while shaping representation, taxation, and state-making.

Peterson contends that 20th-century transformations have pushed the written constitution toward a breaking point and calls for renewed public deliberation about constitutional reform.

The work combines intellectual and material history to urge democratic planning for a constitution that addresses climate, inequality, and modern governance.