Walter Isaacson is known for writing the definitive biographies of Henry Kissinger, Benjamin Franklin, Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein, Steve Jobs, and Elon Musk. But his new book, The Greatest Sentence Ever Written, is not a biography at all. It’s an analysis—and a dissection—of the words that defined American history and shape our political imagination:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”