About the Program
Ms. Maier talked about her new book, American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence. The book describes the second Continental Congress evolving into a national government, the influence of Thomas Paine's book Common Sense, and the political strategies that existed within the Congress. Ms. Maier also writes about the influence of the document immediately following its signing and how President Lincoln ensured the Declaration of Independence would remain a living force in American society.
Pauline Maier is the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of American History at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A popular scholar of the American Revolution, the preceding era and post-revolutionary America, she was a Fulbright Scholar at the London School of Economics the following year and holds a Phd from Harvard University.