We Hold These Truths: Understanding the Ideas and Ideals of the Constitution

Mortimer Adler devoted a lifetime to studying the great ideas of Western culture and explaining even the most difficult concepts to the average citizen, earning Time magazine's praise as a "philosopher for everyman". In We Hold These Truths, Dr. Adler caps his life's work by illuminating the ideas and ideals that have made the United States of America a truly unique nation in the annals of history.

The ideas Adler examines include those at the core of the Declaration of Independence: human equality, inalienable human rights, civil rights, the pursuit of happiness, and both the consent and dissent of the governed. These are the ideas that form the basis for justice, domestic tranquility, the common defense, the general welfare, and the blessings of liberty - the ideals that are found in the preamble to the Constitution and which bind us together as a nation and a people.

Mortimer J. Adler (1902-2001), American philosopher, educator, and popular author, was chairman of Encyclopaedia Britannica's board of editors, the founder and director of the Institute for Philosophical Research, and an honorary trustee and founder of the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies.