DECLARE: A Civic Gospel

DECLARE: A Civic Gospel features essays and poems from an array of luminary artists, all inspired by the Declaration of Independence. Their contributions reflect on our country’s inaugural words, giving testament to past, present, and future of the American experiment.

Contributors include Geraldine Brooks, Rita Dove, Coleman Hughes, Jill Lepore, George Packer, and more.

DECLARE: A Civic Gospel was created in partnership with Arion Press. 

Huzzah for this meditation, in poetry and in prose, on our foundational Declaration and the founders who gave it life. Beautifully conceived and perfectly timed, Declare is an extraordinary act of patriotism.

-- Rick Atkinson, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian

A collection of essays by voices nearly as diverse as the country itself, from general to journalist, historian to poet. Provocative, informed, and passionate, these thoughts will challenge readers to reflect on—and pursue—what still binds us together as one people, a quarter millennium after Jefferson drafted our foundational document.

—Michael Auslin, author of National Treasure: How the Declaration of Independence Made America

Declare: A Civic Gospel is a beautiful reminder that ours is a country shaped by language and imagination. Bringing together some of today’s most compelling writers and thinkers in conversation with the founding ideals of the American experiment, it reflects on words that have endured for 250 years and continue to inspire people around the world. Just as importantly, Declare celebrates the book itself, one of humanity’s greatest inventions, as a work of art that speaks to us both personally and across time.

-- Ken Burns, filmmaker

Declare: A Civic Gospel is a wonderful addition to the national conversation about the meaning of the Declaration of Independence and, therefore, what it means to be an American. The timing for this volume is perfect, and its messages are absolutely vital.

-- Annette Gordon-Reed,

Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Jefferson and Race: A Reader

What a perfect birthday present for the Declaration of Independence!  The poems, essays, and narratives in these pages illuminate, interrogate, confront, and celebrate both America’s founding document and its author, Thomas Jefferson. The result is a many-voiced and full-throated affirmation of our complicated, sometimes self-contradictory national identity.

--Amanda Vaill, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Pride and Pleasure

Jane Kamensky, the head of Jefferson’s Monticello, has assembled an extraordinary array of writers to celebrate the many meanings of the Declaration of Independence on the 250th anniversary of its creation. A remarkable and lasting achievement.

-- Gordon S. Wood,

Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Power and Liberty: Constitutionalism in the American Revolution

Paperback, 148 pages.