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How have Americans governed themselves? This is the central inquiry in this course, which spans American history from colonial times until the recent past. We focus on the delicate balance between the people, the law, and the state, amid epochal changes, structural shifts in economy and society, and the rise of new intellectual and jurisprudential frameworks. The course features case studies, including studies about empire, constitutionalism, police power, racism and nativism, civil rights, and rights revolutions to examine how Americans have affixed the location of legal and political authority; to decide who gets to wield legal and constitutional authority; and which parties have been marked off as subjects of state power. Readings draw on classics of legal and political thought as well as powerful new approaches to American legal history.

COURSE CONTENT

• Twelve lectures
• Primary source readings to complement the lectures
• A certificate of completion for 15 hours of professional development credit

Readings: The suggested readings for each session will be listed in the “Resources” link on the course site. You are not required to read or purchase any print materials. The quizzes are based on the lectures.

Course Access: After your purchase, you can access your course by signing in to the Gilder Lehrman website and clicking on the My Courses link, located under My Account in the navigation menu.

Questions? Please view our FAQs page or email selfpacedcourses@gilderlehrman.org.

LEAD SCHOLAR: Gautham Rao

Gautham Rao, an associate professor of history at American University, is a legal historian of early America and the United States. He has been a postdoctoral fellow at the Library Company of Philadelphia and Samuel I. Golieb Fellow in Legal History at the New York University School of Law, and has served as a visiting professor at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris, France. He is the author of National Duties: Custom Houses and the Making of the American State (University of Chicago Press, 2016) and numerous articles and book chapters. His book White Power: Policing American Slavery will be published by Hodding Carter III Books/UNC Press in spring 2026. He is also working on a book about the television show The West Wing. He has contributed to historians’ amicus briefs for cases before the Supreme Court of the United States and is editor-in-chief of Law & History Review, the leading scholarly journal of legal history.