The United States Constitution occupies a quasi-mythical status in American political culture, according to Boston College Law Professor Aziz Rana, whose new book argues that this reverence is a 20th-century phenomenon and has led Americans to idolize a flawed document. The Constitutional Bind: How Americans Came to Idolize a Document That Fails Them (University of Chicago Press, 2024) explores how the Constitution came to be so glorified and how this has impacted American life. Rana connects this widespread idolization to the rise of U.S. global dominance. According to the author, such veneration has had far-reaching consequences: despite offering a unifying language of reform, it has also unleashed an interventionist national security state abroad while undermining the possibility of deeper change at home. Rana’s research and teaching center on American constitutional law and political development. In particular, his work focuses on how shifting notions of race, citizenship, and empire have shaped legal and political identity since the founding of the country. Rana is also author of the book The Two Faces of American Freedom. He talks about his new book, the Constitution, and comparative constitutions in this Q&A from BC Law magazine.