These Truths: A History of the United States

Nonfiction, History, Americas, United States, State & Local, Modern
Cover of the book These Truths: A History of the United States by Jill Lepore, W. W. Norton & Company
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Jill Lepore ISBN: 9780393635256
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company Publication: September 18, 2018
Imprint: W. W. Norton & Company Language: English
Author: Jill Lepore
ISBN: 9780393635256
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Publication: September 18, 2018
Imprint: W. W. Norton & Company
Language: English

**New York Times Bestseller

In the most ambitious one-volume American history in decades, award-winning historian and New Yorker writer Jill Lepore offers a magisterial account of the origins and rise of a divided nation, an urgently needed reckoning with the beauty and tragedy of American history.**

Written in elegiac prose, Lepore’s groundbreaking investigation places truth itself—a devotion to facts, proof, and evidence—at the center of the nation’s history. The American experiment rests on three ideas—"these truths," Jefferson called them—political equality, natural rights, and the sovereignty of the people. And it rests, too, on a fearless dedication to inquiry, Lepore argues, because self-government depends on it. But has the nation, and democracy itself, delivered on that promise?

These Truths tells this uniquely American story, beginning in 1492, asking whether the course of events over more than five centuries has proven the nation’s truths, or belied them. To answer that question, Lepore traces the intertwined histories of American politics, law, journalism, and technology, from the colonial town meeting to the nineteenth-century party machine, from talk radio to twenty-first-century Internet polls, from Magna Carta to the Patriot Act, from the printing press to Facebook News.

Along the way, Lepore’s sovereign chronicle is filled with arresting sketches of both well-known and lesser-known Americans, from a parade of presidents and a rogues’ gallery of political mischief makers to the intrepid leaders of protest movements, including Frederick Douglass, the famed abolitionist orator; William Jennings Bryan, the three-time presidential candidate and ultimately tragic populist; Pauli Murray, the visionary civil rights strategist; and Phyllis Schlafly, the uncredited architect of modern conservatism.

Americans are descended from slaves and slave owners, from conquerors and the conquered, from immigrants and from people who have fought to end immigration. "A nation born in contradiction will fight forever over the meaning of its history," Lepore writes, but engaging in that struggle by studying the past is part of the work of citizenship. "The past is an inheritance, a gift and a burden," These Truths observes. "It can’t be shirked. There’s nothing for it but to get to know it."

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

**New York Times Bestseller

In the most ambitious one-volume American history in decades, award-winning historian and New Yorker writer Jill Lepore offers a magisterial account of the origins and rise of a divided nation, an urgently needed reckoning with the beauty and tragedy of American history.**

Written in elegiac prose, Lepore’s groundbreaking investigation places truth itself—a devotion to facts, proof, and evidence—at the center of the nation’s history. The American experiment rests on three ideas—"these truths," Jefferson called them—political equality, natural rights, and the sovereignty of the people. And it rests, too, on a fearless dedication to inquiry, Lepore argues, because self-government depends on it. But has the nation, and democracy itself, delivered on that promise?

These Truths tells this uniquely American story, beginning in 1492, asking whether the course of events over more than five centuries has proven the nation’s truths, or belied them. To answer that question, Lepore traces the intertwined histories of American politics, law, journalism, and technology, from the colonial town meeting to the nineteenth-century party machine, from talk radio to twenty-first-century Internet polls, from Magna Carta to the Patriot Act, from the printing press to Facebook News.

Along the way, Lepore’s sovereign chronicle is filled with arresting sketches of both well-known and lesser-known Americans, from a parade of presidents and a rogues’ gallery of political mischief makers to the intrepid leaders of protest movements, including Frederick Douglass, the famed abolitionist orator; William Jennings Bryan, the three-time presidential candidate and ultimately tragic populist; Pauli Murray, the visionary civil rights strategist; and Phyllis Schlafly, the uncredited architect of modern conservatism.

Americans are descended from slaves and slave owners, from conquerors and the conquered, from immigrants and from people who have fought to end immigration. "A nation born in contradiction will fight forever over the meaning of its history," Lepore writes, but engaging in that struggle by studying the past is part of the work of citizenship. "The past is an inheritance, a gift and a burden," These Truths observes. "It can’t be shirked. There’s nothing for it but to get to know it."

More books from W. W. Norton & Company

Cover of the book Pocket Guide to Chicago Architecture (Norton Pocket Guides) by Jill Lepore
Cover of the book RAF: The Birth of the World's First Air Force by Jill Lepore
Cover of the book The Mission: Waging War and Keeping Peace with America's Military by Jill Lepore
Cover of the book Touching a Nerve: The Self as Brain by Jill Lepore
Cover of the book Law for Architects: What You Need to Know by Jill Lepore
Cover of the book The Minimal Self: Psychic Survival in Troubled Times by Jill Lepore
Cover of the book The Man Who Would Stop at Nothing: Long-Distance Motorcycling's Endless Road by Jill Lepore
Cover of the book When the World Was Steady: A Novel by Jill Lepore
Cover of the book The Only Street in Paris: Life on the Rue des Martyrs by Jill Lepore
Cover of the book Click Here to Kill Everybody: Security and Survival in a Hyper-connected World by Jill Lepore
Cover of the book Historic Preservation: An Introduction to Its History, Principles, and Practice (Second Edition) by Jill Lepore
Cover of the book Silver and Salt: A Novel by Jill Lepore
Cover of the book A Human Eye: Essays on Art in Society, 1996-2008 by Jill Lepore
Cover of the book Globish: How English Became the World's Language by Jill Lepore
Cover of the book So You Think You Know Baseball?: A Fan's Guide to the Official Rules by Jill Lepore
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy