These Truths

July 16, 2018
The principles of the Declaration of Independence get betrayed, fought over, and sometimes fulfilled in this probing political history of the Unites States. Harvard historian and New Yorker writer Lepore (Book of Ages) explores how ideals of liberty, equality, and happiness have fueled conflicts from the colonial era, when American slave owners protested taxation without representation as a form of slavery, to the struggles of African-Americans, women, immigrants, and workers for freedom, votes, and civil rights. Her viewpoint is progressive—she spotlights neglected heroes like George Washington’s runaway slaves and People’s Party orator Mary Lease—but she puts forth evenhanded assessments of latter-day partisan wrangles, castigating both the alt-right and the “sanctimonious accusations of racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia” of the campus left. Lepore sometimes strains for poetic, even psychedelic, imagery—her impression of the Civil War, with “giant armies wielding unstoppable machines, as if monsters with scales of steel had been let loose on the land to maul and maraud, and to eat even the innocent,” feels like a Transformers movie—and she leaves out much historical detail to concentrate on politics, constitutional struggles, and evolving ideologies. The payoff: she unifies a complex and conflicted history into a coherent, focused, engrossing narrative with insights that resonate for modern readers. Photos.

Starred review from July 1, 2018
Harvard professor, New Yorker staff writer, and best-selling author Lepore (Joe Gould's Teeth, 2016) has written an ambitious and provocative attempt to interpret American history as an effort to fulfill and maintain certain fundamental principles. These truths, as enunciated by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, include political equality, natural (or creator-given) rights, and the ultimate sovereignty of the people. Though chronologically structured, this is more of a civics lesson than a narrative history. Throughout this journey from Columbus to the present, Lepore consistently stresses the often-anguishing contradictions between the ideals and realities of American life. A nation born in liberty accepted the enslavement of millions. The hope that technological progress would enhance freedom was accompanied by terrible economic exploitation in eighteenth-century mines and factories. But this is not a one-sided carping over national sins. Using a series of beautifully written vignettes, Lepore captures the nobility of the individuals and various movements that fought to narrow the gap between principles and everyday life. Of course, generally speaking, people don't live their lives as if they are part of a moral struggle or social experiment. Still, in the age of Trump, in which many long-accepted verities seem to be crumbling, Lepore's far-reaching interpretative history demands serious consideration.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

Starred review from September 1, 2018

Providing historical context for national events, Lepore (history, Harvard Univ.; The Whites of Their Eyes; The Secret History of Wonder Woman) delivers a sweeping, balanced, and finely wrought narrative history of the United States. The vaulting ambition of the book is matched by the elegance and dry wit of Lepore's writing and careful rigor of her scholarship. She expertly marshals incidents, statistics, and analysis, resulting in a chronicle at once panoramic and richly detailed--like a giant medieval tapestry. Thematically, Lepore pegs her narrative to the great truths: equality, popular sovereignty, and consent of the governed. Those truths, the author contends, formed the basis of the American experiment and have been at the crux of most of the controversies and struggles the nation has faced. Lepore is particularly clear-eyed in documenting the United State's stumbling and often shameful record in addressing racial, gender, and economic inequality. Minibiographies--often of lesser-known figures, primarily women and people of color--are sprinkled throughout, adding texture and personality to this important work. VERDICT This thought-provoking and fascinating book stands to become the definitive one-volume U.S. history for a new generation. [See Prepub Alert, 3/26/18.]--Christopher Myers, Lake Oswego P.L., OR

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2018

Providing historical context for national events, Lepore (history, Harvard Univ.; The Whites of Their Eyes; The Secret History of Wonder Woman) delivers a sweeping, balanced, and finely wrought narrative history of the United States. The vaulting ambition of the book is matched by the elegance and dry wit of Lepore's writing and careful rigor of her scholarship. She expertly marshals incidents, statistics, and analysis, resulting in a chronicle at once panoramic and richly detailed--like a giant medieval tapestry. Thematically, Lepore pegs her narrative to the great truths: equality, popular sovereignty, and consent of the governed. Those truths, the author contends, formed the basis of the American experiment and have been at the crux of most of the controversies and struggles the nation has faced. Lepore is particularly clear-eyed in documenting the United State's stumbling and often shameful record in addressing racial, gender, and economic inequality. Minibiographies--often of lesser-known figures, primarily women and people of color--are sprinkled throughout, adding texture and personality to this important work. VERDICT This thought-provoking and fascinating book stands to become the definitive one-volume U.S. history for a new generation. [See Prepub Alert, 3/26/18.]--Christopher Myers, Lake Oswego P.L., OR

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from June 15, 2018
The celebrated New Yorker writer and Bancroft Prize winner tells the American story."A nation born in revolution will forever struggle against chaos," writes Lepore (History/Harvard Univ.; Joe Gould's Teeth, 2016, etc.). In this mammoth, wonderfully readable history of the United States from Columbus to Trump, the author relies on primary sources to "let the dead speak for themselves," creating an enthralling, often dramatic narrative of the American political experiment based on Thomas Jefferson's "truths" of political equality, natural rights, and the sovereignty of the people. The author recounts major events--the Revolution, Civil War, world wars, Vietnam, 9/11, and the war on terror--while emphasizing the importance of facts and evidence in the national story, as well as the roles of slavery ("America's Achilles' heel") and women, both absent in the founding documents. Lepore offers crisp, vivid portraits of individuals from Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine to Liberator writer Maria W. Stewart and preacher David Walker to contemporaries like "rascal" Bill Clinton, sporting a "grin like a 1930s comic-strip scamp." "To study the past is to unlock the prison of the present," writes the author, noting recurrent debates about guns, abortion, and race. "Slavery wasn't an aberration in an industrial economy; slavery was its engine," she reminds. Throughout, Lepore provides sharp observations ("instead of Marx, America had Thoreau") and exquisite summaries: In World War I, "machines slaughtered the masses. Europe fell to its knees. The United States rose to its feet." She discusses the "aching want" of the Depression and the "frantic, desperate, and paranoid" politics of today. Always with style and intelligence, Lepore weaves stories of immigrants and minorities, creates moving scenes (Margaret Fuller's death in a storm off New York City), and describes the importance of photography and printed newspapers in the lives of a divided people now "cast adrift on the ocean of the Internet."A splendid rendering--filled with triumph, tragedy, and hope--that will please Lepore's readers immensely and win her many new ones.

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