As the United States marks the 250th anniversary of its Declaration of Independence, “America Unfinished” brings together more than 60 legal scholars from the Harvard Law School faculty, each writing 1,000-word essays, to analyze from their individual perspectives and areas of law this historic moment in American law and governance.
Edited by Harvard Law School Professors Alexandra Natapoff and Guy-Uriel Charles, the book coheres around the dramatic experiment in American legal governance that began in 1776. Some essays explore the modern expansion of executive power, both domestically and internationally. Other essays examine longstanding divides between workers, consumers, and markets, and the hard questions they raise about democratic accountability. And finally, some contributors address the future of our knowledge and governance institutions under pressure from the disruptions caused by technological and informational revolution. As a whole, the collection celebrates and shares the wide variety of views that individual professors bring to their scholarship and teaching as part of one Harvard Law School faculty.
“The point of a democracy is, I think, to house disagreement, to house difference, with a collective agreement about the ground rules. In law school, we sometimes just call that rule of law.”
-Alexandra Natapoff
A Conversation with the Editors
Guy-Uriel Charles and Alexandra Natapoff reflect on conceiving, editing, and completing the book of essays. They discuss academic freedom, disagreement, and the role of legal scholarship in modeling the rule of law for students, the profession, and democracy.
“Part of what makes this institution law itself is that we cherish and encourage dissent and disagreement and I think this collection models that. Here are a bunch of people who disagree with one another but they’re operating within a shared framework and they can come together to display it to a productive end.”
-Guy-Uriel Charles
From Harvard Law Today
‘America Unfinished’ explores the state of the nation at 250
Harvard Law Today discusses a new essay collection by more than 60 Harvard Law faculty members contemplates the past, present, and future of the United States.
Faculty discuss their essays at Harvard Law School panels
About the editors
Alexandra Natapoff
Alexandra Natapoff is an award-winning criminal justice scholar and the Lee S. Kreindler Professor of Law. She writes about criminal courts, public defense, plea bargaining, wrongful convictions, and race and inequality in the criminal system. She previously served as a federal public defender in Baltimore, Maryland.
Guy-Uriel E. Charles
Guy-Uriel E. Charles is the Charles J. Ogletree Jr. Professor of Law. He also directs the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Jus tice. He writes about how law mediates political power and how law addresses racial subordination.
Harvard Law School faculty member contributors
- Bill Alford
- Sabrineh Ardalan
- Yochai Benkler
- Sharon Block
- Nikolas Bowie
- Maureen Brady
- Scott Brewer
- Stephen Breyer
- Emily Broad Leib
- Tomiko Brown-Nagin
- Guy-Uriel E. Charles
- John Coates
- I. Glenn Cohen
- Andrew Manuel Crespo
- Christine Desan
- Kristen E. Eichensehr
- Benjamin Eidelson
- Jared Ellias
- Susan H. Farbstein
- Noah Feldman
- Jody Freeman
- D. James Greiner
- John Goldberg
- Annette Gordon-Reed
- Sheila Heen
- Howell Jackson
- Elizabeth Papp Kamali
- Randall Kennedy
- Michael Klarman
- Adriaan Lanni
- Eloise Lawrence
- Richard Lazarus
- Jill Lepore
- Lawrence Lessig
- Kenneth W. Mack
- Bruce H. Mann
- Martha Minow
- Daniel Nagin
- Alexandra Natapoff
- Charles Nesson
- Gerald L. Neuman
- Ruth L. Okediji
- Mariana Pargendler
- Intisar A. Rabb
- Richard M. Re
- Daphna Renan
- Mark J. Roe
- Benjamin Sachs
- Stephen E. Sachs
- Larry Schwartztol
- Joseph William Singer
- Carol Steiker
- Nicholas Stephanopoulos
- Kristen A. Stilt
- Ronald Sullivan
- Cass R. Sunstein
- Philip Torrey
- Rebecca Tushnet
- Dehlia Umunna
- Rachel A. Viscomi
- Laura Weinrib
- Alex Whiting
- David Wilkins
- Jonathan Zittrain
The latest news about “America Unfinished”
- June 23, 2026: “It’s 2026. Why are we doing politics like it’s 1776?,” Boston Globe Magazine – Rachel Viscomi
- June 23, 2026: “Shelley Irwin Show,” WGVU Radio (NPR in Grand Rapids, MI) – Alexandra Natapoff and Guy Charles
- June 16, 2026: “How Our Constitution Works…And Why It Doesn’t” podcast (available via Spotify, Amazon, Apple, etc.) – Justice Stephen Breyer
- June 9, 2026: “Cowboy State Daily Show” (WY) – Alexandra Natapoff (watch at 45:15)
- May 27, 2026: “Keen On America” podcast – Alexandra Natapoff