AJ Jacobs

Sep 20, 2024 | foxnews.com | AJ Jacobs

In my new book, "The Year of Living Constitutionally," I talk about lessons from the Founding Fathers — and in this piece I want to talk about the importance of getting your hands dirty. (See the video at the top of this article.) For starters, since I wrote the book with a quill pen, I got black ink all over my fingers.

Sep 13, 2024 | foxnews.com | AJ Jacobs

I’m writing this article with a pen. And not just a regular pen. A quill pen. It's a goose feather I've carved with a straight razor into a sharp point and dipped in ink. I’m doing this because I spent a year trying to live like the Founding Fathers. It was an attempt to learn whatever life wisdom I could from them — and one of my favorite parts of that year was writing with ye olde quill pen. My desk is so splattered with ink stains it looks like a Jackson Pollock painting.

Sep 6, 2024 | foxnews.com | AJ Jacobs

I recently wrote a book in which I tried to understand America’s past and present by living like the Founding Fathers did. We’re talking candles, quill pens, muskets, you name it. In a new series of articles — of which this is the first — I’m sharing some of the life lessons I learned from the Founders. (See the video at the top of this article.) He was a wonderful writer, political thinker and inventor (including of swim fins!).

Jul 3, 2024 | nationalmemo.com | AJ Jacobs

Currently, five of the nine justices on the Supreme Court claim to adhere to some version of originalism when deciding their cases. This raises some questions: Is originalism the best approach to interpreting the Constitution? Are the justices doing good history and accurately assessing the original public meaning of the text? I’d answer NAY to both.

Jul 3, 2024 | thefp.com | AJ Jacobs

This piece made me chuckle. It's funny to think about trying to live an eighteenth century life in the twenty-first century. But as a critique of originalism it fails. The purpose of originalism is to preserve the rule of law. This is fundamental to maintaining our freedom. The founders understood human frailty. They gave us a constitutional form of government purposefully hindered by separation of powers, federalism, and a bill of rights.