The Fourth of July is, by happy circumstance, generally a good day for historical editors. Over barbecues and across beaches, from sea to shining sea, folks seem glad to talk about founding-era documents and—critically—the many drafts that manuscripts arise from. Huzzah for the archivists who salvaged the Declaration for its trip down the Delaware, we say, and for the librarians who align digital worlds to parse the Magna Carta next to the Bill of Rights. Setting the revolutionary drafts in global context is one route to the past. Another way to think about the Declaration is to focus on its Read more