Summary:
Every law student engages with the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Civil War Amendments in the Constitutional Law course. Few, however, know the story of two seventeenth-century ships that sailed from Europe and landed in America and subsequently shaped the way in which the Founders and their successors understood the nation’s history.
Professor David S. Reynolds explores this history in his most recent book, Two Ships: Jamestown 1619, Plymouth 1620, and the Struggle for the Soul of America. Two Ships tells the story of the arrival of the White Lion in 1619, which brought the first enslaved Africans to Virginia, and of the Mayflower in 1620, which carried the Pilgrims to Plymouth. As Reynolds recounts, the ships became dueling symbols in the American imagination.
In his discussion with Associate Dean Rodger Citron, Reynolds tells the story of each vessel’s voyage and explains how they became linked in the history of the colonies and then the United States. As Reynolds explains, one of the most striking features of Two Ships is how the history of the two ships has been cast and recast in response to the political and cultural context of each era. The discussion concludes with Reynolds’ thoughts on what this history means for the United States as we approach the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
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Learn more about Professor Reynolds:
David S. Reynolds is a Distinguished Professor at the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center, holding appointments across the English, History, and Biography & Memoir programs. An award-winning historian, he has authored or edited 17 books exploring the intersections of American literature, politics, and culture. His landmark titles include the Bancroft Prize-winning Walt Whitman’s America, the Lincoln Prize-winning Abe: Abraham Lincoln in His Times, and Beneath the American Renaissance, winner of the Christian Gauss Award.
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