Meet Jonathan Gienapp: the ‘Michael Jordan’ of the Stanford history department

Jonathan Gienapp, an associate professor of history and law, hasn’t missed a Patriots game in 31 years. Growing up in Massachusetts with the American Revolution in his “backyard,” his father, William Gienapp, helped inspire his journey in American history. Gienapp’s father was also a historian of the American Civil War and Gienapp’s main companion at Patriots games.

Now, at Stanford, Gienapp is a scholar of constitutional, political, legal and intellectual history of the early United States.

To Gienapp, there isn’t a more urgent question than constitutional interpretation: “None of us who’s alive today had any say in making the Constitution law. We didn’t vote on it, but it is our law. Does that change how we interpret it?”