The past two years have seen the appearance of an
informative Encyclopedia of the American Constitution (4 vols., edited by Leonard W. Levy [Macmillan]-RRB-, several outstanding studies on its intellectual background (including Forrest McDonald's Novus Ordo Seculorum: The Intellectual Origins of the Constitution [University Press of Kansas] and Morton White's Philosophy, The Federalist, and the Constitution [Oxford University Press], at least one pathbreaking effort to
trace the document's role through the years (Michael Kammen's A Machine That Would Go of Itself The Constitution in American Culture [Knopf]-RRB- and a gaggle of good
books on its religious themes (see Martin Marty's review in The Century [«James Madison Revisited,» April 9.