“As long as democracy is a collective endeavour of all the people who belong to it, in some sense it can never be finished — because we are constantly bequeathing to the next generation the opportunity and the freedom to have these conversations over and over again.” — Alexandra Natapoff

It’s less than six weeks until America’s 250th birthday. The official America 250 store is selling T-shirts while Harvard Law School is doing something slightly less commercial. 62 HLS professors have written 1,000-word essays, assembled into a single volume to be published on July 4. Entitled America Unfinished: Two Hundred and Fifty Years of Law and Governance, it’s co-edited by Alexandra Natapoff, a Harvard Law professor who spent years as a federal public defender in Baltimore. The title, of course, is borrowed from the Gettysburg Address, where Lincoln charged the living with completing “the unfinished work” of those who died in the Civil War.

So is America unfinished or is it just getting started? For Natapoff and other Harvard Law School professors like this year’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Jill Lepore, the answer is suitably complex. Yes and no and maybe. Everything all at once. The essays focus on 250 years of both justice and injustice in America. Perhaps the only thing all authors agree on is the central role of capitalism in the history of the United States. Follow the money, Natapoff suggests. Those dollars will transport the reader to the heart of the American story.

That said, America Unfinished will certainly cost you less than a three-year Harvard Law degree. And if you wait six months, the book will be available at no cost online. So follow the money. It will take you to some unexpectedly free places.

Five Takeaways

• The Gettysburg Address as the Title’s Source. Lincoln charged the living with completing the ‘unfinished work’ of those who died — a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Democracy is not a gift that has been fully delivered. It is a task being handed on.

• America and Democracy Are Not the Same. The criminal system fails many tests of democracy: exclusive, inegalitarian, coercive. Many of the 62 essays disagree about the state of various pieces of governance. Whether it is fair to call any part of American legal governance a democracy is the book’s central inquiry.

• A Federal Public Defender in Baltimore. Before she was a professor, Natapoff defended some of the most vulnerable people in Baltimore against the full resources of the federal government. Those years shaped everything — her scholarship, Punishment Without Crime, and her contribution to this book.

• It’s the Money, Not the Lawyers. Six economic governance scholars who disagree about almost everything converge on one answer: financial interests, corporate interests, the ownership class have been running America. The lawyers helped. But they weren’t making the decisions.

• Molly Brady on Property Law and Community. The last essay in the book argues that property law has permitted suburban sprawl and the destruction of physical community while supporting social media’s thinner version. She exhorts us to stand up for the vision of law that builds communities we are proud of.

About the Guest

Alexandra Natapoff is the Lee S. Kreindler Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, a 2016 Guggenheim Fellow, and the author of Punishment Without Crime and Snitching. She is co-editor of America Unfinished (MIT Press, July 4, 2026).

References

America Unfinished, co-edited by Alexandra Natapoff and Guy-Uriel Charles (MIT Press, July 4, 2026). Open access from January 2027.
Alexandra Natapoff, Punishment Without Crime (Basic Books, 2018)
Dan Wang, Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future

00:00:31 Introduction: America’s 250th birthday and the book
00:01:33 Should we be celebrating? What the 62 essays ask
00:03:06 The Gettysburg Address as the title’s source
00:05:09 America vs democracy: are they the same word?
00:05:27 The criminal justice system as a failure of democracy
00:06:41 Natapoff’s background: Jewish immigrants, Baltimore public defender
00:09:38 Herding cats: 62 essays, 62 professors, 1,000 words each
00:10:21 Is this just another progressive rant?
00:20:00 The scope of the book: elections, AI, financial institutions
00:25:00 It’s the money, not the lawyers: the economic governance section
00:34:57 We’ll get Bryan Stevenson, Noah Feldman, Cass Sunstein
00:35:00 Is America run by lawyers or by engineers?
00:36:34 The economic governance scholars: six people who disagree
00:38:16 How did you get 62 professors to write 1,000 words?
00:38:29 The public defender’s training: being hollered at
00:39:30 MIT Press and the speed of publication
00:39:50 Open access six months after publication
00:40:14 Why buy the book if it’s free in six months?
00:40:51 Better than a T-shirt from America 250
00:41:28 Natapoff’s favourite essay: Molly Brady on property law
00:43:22 Conclusion: July 4, 2026