This book examines the influence of opposing constitutional ideals during the 'founding period' of constitutionalism in the Americas.

1. Radicalism: honoring the 'general will'; 2. Conservatism: the moral cement of society; 3. Liberalism: between tyranny and anarchy; 4. The quest for equality.

Roberto Gargarella is a Professor of Constitutional Theory and Political Philosophy at the Law School of the Universidad de Buenos Aires and the Universidad Di Tella and a researcher for CONICET in Buenos Aires and the Christian Michelsen Institute in Norway. He has also been a Visiting Fellow at Columbia, New York University, and Harvard and Visiting Professor at universities in Europe, Latin America, and the United States. He received a John Simon Guggenheim grant in 2000 and a Harry Frank Guggenheim grant in 2002-3 and has published on issues of legal and political philosophy, as well as on US and Latin American constitutionalism.