Michael Gillespie and Michael Lienesch are coeditors of Ratifying the Constitution: Ideas and Interests in the Several American States, which contains the papers presented at a conference of the same name held in May 1987 at the National Humanities Center and was cosponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities. The conference was conceived to promote discussion among historians and political theorists on issues of history, methodology, and theory concerning the founding era.
At the time of this interview, Gillespie, a Fellow at the National Humanities Center (2004-05), was professor of political science at Duke University. Lienesch, a Fellow at the Center (1998-99), was professor of political science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
This edition of Soundings was conducted by Wayne J. Pond.
