These Truths: A History of the United States

Nothing short of a masterpiece. NPR Books A New York Times Bestseller and a Washington Post Notable Book of the Year 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. Widely hailed for its sweeping, sobering account of the American past (New York Times Book Review), Jill Lepores one-volume history of America places truth itselfa devotion to facts, proof, and evidenceat the center of the nations history. The American experiment rests on three ideasthese truths, Jefferson called thempolitical equality, natural rights, and the sovereignty of the people. 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 nations truths, or belied them. To answer that question, Lepore wrestles with the state of American politics, the legacy of slavery, the persistence of inequality, and the nature of technological change. 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. With These Truths, Lepore has produced a book that will shape our view of American history for decades to come. 70 illustrations