About this text
Andrew Finstuen and Stewart Gardner
In 2026, the United States will celebrate the 250th anniversary of its founding as a democratic republic. In this course, students will read their way through key historical moments within those 250 years by engaging the nation’s founding documents and subsequent foundational voices who wrote, thought about, and critically examined the nature, values, and expression of the aspiration for a “more perfect union.”
This text was developed to be a companion to the course Reading the Republic, a university course dedicated to the study of core documents in American history. It is authored by Dr. Andrew Finstuen, Executive Director of the Institute for Advancing American Values at Boise State University. It is co-authored by Stewart Gardner, Teaching Professor in Political Science at Boise State; his specialty is the History of Political Thought. The reading guide was developed in partnership with Boise State eCampus Center.
Special thanks go to the Idaho State America at 250 Advisory Committee for their support of the project and to the state legislators for supplying special funding to make the project possible.
