The trickster figure is a common cultural feature globally. A not-so-pious Muslim cleric, with foolish deeds and clever sayings, Nasreddin (Nasreddin Hoca in Turkish, Molla Farsi, Joha Arabic) has been the most popular folk character Middle East for centuries. Nasreddin: Making of Modern Trickster (1906-1911) investigates how cartoon journal South Caucasus, Nasreddin, reproduced as medium socia...

Because my expertise is in early American history, I will concentrate on Larry Kramer’s portrait of pre-Revolutionary popular constitutionalism, which acts as a baseline against which to measure nineteenth-century developments. Before examining pre-Revolutionary constitutionalism, however, I want to note two features of Kramer’s style of historical argument that make the book a particularly sop...