The Hoover's History Lab and Center for Revitalizing American Institutions invites you to National Treasure: How the Declaration of Independence Made America, a special book launch with the author, Michael Auslin on Tuesday, May 26, 2026 from 4:00 - 5:15 p.m. PT.
The inspiring story of the Declaration of Independence —the first to take us from its drafting by Thomas Jefferson to today— charts the many lives of a document that captures the soul of America on the 250th anniversary of the country’s founding.\
An award-winning historian, Michael Auslin takes us from the boarding house in Philadelphia where Jefferson put quill to paper to the Declaration’s covert signing and its long, harrowing, and ultimately hallowed afterlife. We follow the parchment as it is hauled out of a soon-to-be-burning Washington in 1814 and see it hidden in a dank cellar, posted in classrooms, printed on handkerchiefs, and used to sell insurance and bundle coal. Through it all, Jefferson’s words have inspired implausibly varied causes, from suffragists and civil rights leaders to groups waging war on the US government. As Jefferson had hoped, the principles enshrined in the Declaration became a beacon to the world. But what lessons should we take from it today? Can this statement of ideals in whose name the signers pledged their lives and sacred honor bring a disparate nation together? As we gather to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the founders’ bold experiment in democracy, Auslin reminds us that this enduring document was not just a call for freedom and equality but an eloquent statement of the principles that bind us together.
FEATURING
Michael Auslin, PhD, is the Payson J. Treat Distinguished Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. A historian by training, Auslin is the author of the forthcoming history National Treasure: How the Declaration of Independence Made America. He also writes The Patowmack Packet, a Substack on Washington, DC, and American history. His prior books include Asia’s New Geopolitics: Essays on Reshaping the Indo-Pacific and The End of the Asian Century: War, Stagnation, and the Risks to the World’s Most Dynamic Region. He has been a longtime contributor to The Wall Street Journal and his writing appears in other leading publications including the Financial Times, The Spectator, Law & Liberty, and Foreign Policy. He comments regularly for US and foreign print and broadcast media.
MODERATED BY
Brandice Canes-Wrone is the Maurice R. Greenberg Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, professor of political science at Stanford University, and the founding director of the Hoover Institution Center for Revitalizing American Institutions. She is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Academy of Sciences and Letters.
