"In the most ambitious one-volume American history in decades, award-winning historian ... 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? [This book] 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 …
"In the most ambitious one-volume American history in decades, award-winning historian ... 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? [This book] 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, ' [this book] observes. 'It can't be shirked. 'There's nothing for it but to get to know it'"--Jacket.
Absolutely loved the beginning. It's a fantastic view of history through the lense of governance, with many stops to help understand the background and connections. E.g. how monarchy pushback in England helped drive democracy in America. The book also has millions of very interesting little anecdotes. The author says this is the material for a course, and I think this book would greatly benefit from pointers of what to read, and when to go in what level of detail. Without it, the book seemed at times too detailed without purpose (or I missed it). I think I'll go back to it via the index if I want to read more, but I ended up choosing specific sections and leaving big sections unread.
Now that Goodreads encourages us to start our reviews as soon as we "shelve" them (a good thing when a book is this enormous) I just wanted to get in there early to say that I read the beginning twice rather than rush ahead because it was so amazing.
Don't know much about history, but I know what I like. I liked learning about Malcolm X's parents, about how abortion became political, why American history conventionally starts in 1492, that Bobby Kennedy was an aide to Joe McCarthy, that the English were trying to be nice to the natives in comparison with the Spanish, , that the secret ballot was a key method of suppressing the Black vote, that George Washington had a slave who left to fight for the British, that the British laughed at American philosophies of freedom when they were the big slave owners, indeed how keeping …
Now that Goodreads encourages us to start our reviews as soon as we "shelve" them (a good thing when a book is this enormous) I just wanted to get in there early to say that I read the beginning twice rather than rush ahead because it was so amazing.
Don't know much about history, but I know what I like. I liked learning about Malcolm X's parents, about how abortion became political, why American history conventionally starts in 1492, that Bobby Kennedy was an aide to Joe McCarthy, that the English were trying to be nice to the natives in comparison with the Spanish, , that the secret ballot was a key method of suppressing the Black vote, that George Washington had a slave who left to fight for the British, that the British laughed at American philosophies of freedom when they were the big slave owners, indeed how keeping the South in the union was behind so many constitutional decisions. I could go on.
Goodreads thinks I read it three times but it merely took as long as three books and I don't know much about how to edit my reading history.
