The Greatest Sentence Ever Written

By Walter Isaacson

Categories: History, Politics & Social Sciences

The Greatest Sentence Ever Written (2026) by Walter Isaacson is a short study of the second sentence of the Declaration of Independence, published for the document's 250th anniversary. Isaacson traces how Thomas Jefferson's draft was edited, including Benjamin Franklin's change from "sacred" to "self-evident," and the Enlightenment ideas behind it. He faces the sentence's contradiction with slavery and its exclusions, and argues that its ideals can give Americans common ground.

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