For three years now, we’ve been proud sponsors of the Illahee Lecture Series, a forum that brings speakers on topics from environmental science to neurobiology to politics. February’s speaker was Christopher Phillips, the inspiration for the “Socrates Café” informal philosophical discussion groups now held in over 600 locations around the world. His latest project, Constitution Cafe, is an effort to engage everyday Americans in constructive dialogue and debate about the nature of our government, the meaning of citizenship and our most important political documents. If you missed Christopher live, you can still get to know him as this month’s Book Spotlight falls on…
Constitution Café by Christopher Phillips
Publisher Comments: Energized by the initial optimism surrounding Obama’s presidency and, conversely, the fierce partisanship in Congress, Christopher Phillips has set out to engage Americans in discussions surrounding our must fundamental rights and freedoms, with some help from Thomas Jefferson. A radical in his own day, Jefferson believed that the Constitution should be revised 
periodically to keep up with the changing times. Instead, it has become a sacred, immutable text-and in Phillips’s opinion, it’s in need of some shaking up.
From a high school in West Virginia to People’s Park in Berkeley, California; from Burning Man to the Mall of America, Phillips gathered together Americans from all walks of life, moderating dialogues inspired by Jefferson’s own populist political philosophy, formulating new Constitutional articles. With contagious passion and conviction, Philips has taken up Jefferson’s cause for a truly participatory democracy at a time when our country needs it most.
Review: “Is the U.S. Constitution a work-in-progress or an unchangeable ‘product of divine inspiration’? Thomas Jefferson, a believer in a participatory democracy, thought it was the mark of a healthy society to make changes to the constitution every generation. Taking his cue from our third president, Phillips embarks on a yearlong mission to engage Americans in conversations about how they would rewrite the Constitution. He meets with entrepreneurs and undocumented workers, congressmen and prison inmates, Boy Scouts and Tea Partiers — asking each group to rewrite an article or amendment to the Constitution relevant to them. Journalists debate freedom of the press and Wiki Leaks; congressional staffers hold forth on presidential pardons; and in a particularly poignant conversation, junior high school victims of the foreclosure crisis — now living in resettlement shelters with their families — create an amendment addressing inheritance and redistribution of income. An engaging and informative narrator, Phillips intersperses the modern-day conversations with Jefferson’s thoughts about the issues under discussion and the founding fathers’ own disagreements as they framed the Constitution. In an era of hyper-partisanship, it’s refreshing to read instances of Americans from all political persuasions holding rational, respectful and thought-provoking conversations with one another. (Aug.)” Publishers Weekly Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(Please click here for an archive of our past spotlighted books)
