Jill Lepore
Jill Lepore | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Lepore at National Book Festival 2025 | |
| Born | August 27, 1966 |
| Children | 3 |
| Awards | Bancroft Prize (1999) Pulitzer Prize (2026) |
| Academic background | |
| Education | Tufts University (BA) University of Michigan (MA) Yale University (PhD) |
| Academic work | |
| Institutions | Harvard University Boston University University of California, San Diego |
| Website | jilllepore |
Jill Lepore (born 1966) is an American historian and journalist. She is the David Woods Kemper '41 Professor of American History at Harvard University[1] and a staff writer at The New Yorker, where she has contributed since 2005. She writes about American history, law, literature, and politics.
Her essays and reviews have also appeared in The New York Times, The Times Literary Supplement, The Journal of American History, Foreign Affairs, the Yale Law Journal, The American Scholar, and the American Quarterly.
Three of her books derive from her New Yorker essays: The Mansion of Happiness: A History of Life and Death (2012), a finalist for the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction; The Story of America: Essays on Origins (2012), shortlisted for the PEN Literary Award for the Art of the Essay; and The Whites of Their Eyes: The Tea Party's Revolution and the Battle for American History (2010). Lepore's The Secret History of Wonder Woman (2014) won the 2015 American History Book Prize.[2]
In 2026, her book We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for History.[3]
Early life and education
Lepore was born on August 27, 1966, and grew up in West Boylston, a small town outside Worcester, Massachusetts.[4] Her father was a junior high school principal and her mother was an art teacher.[5] Her paternal grandparents were Italian immigrants from Abruzzo and Naples.[6] Lepore had no early desire to become a historian but claims to have wanted to be a writer from the age of six. She participated in Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) at Tufts University,[7] where she began as a math major. Eventually she left ROTC and changed her major to English.[8] She earned her B.A. in English after three years in 1987.[7][9]
After graduating from Tufts, Lepore had a temporary job working as a secretary at the Harvard Business School[10] before returning to school. She received an M.A. in American culture from the University of Michigan in 1990 and a Ph.D. in American Studies from Yale University in 1995, where she specialized in the history of early America.[11]
Career
Lepore taught at the University of California, San Diego from 1995 to 1996 and at Boston University beginning in 1996; she started at Harvard in 2003.[12][13] Her first book, The Name of War, was published in 1998 and was awarded the Bancroft Prize.[14] In addition to her books and articles on history, in 2008 Lepore published a historical novel, Blindspot, co-written with Jane Kamensky, then a history professor at Brandeis University and later Professor of History and Pforzheimer Foundation Director of the Schlesinger Library at Harvard University. Previously, Lepore and Kamensky had co-founded an online history journal called Common-place.[8] Lepore is now a history professor at Harvard University, where she holds an endowed chair and teaches American political history. She focuses on missing evidence in historical records and articles.[15]
Lepore gathers historical evidence that allows scholars to study and analyze political processes and behaviors. Her articles are often both historical and political. She has said, "History is the art of making an argument about the past by telling a story accountable to evidence."[16]
Lepore has been contributing to The New Yorker since 2005.[17] In the June 23, 2014, issue she criticized the concept of creative destruction, associated with Austrian-born political economist Joseph Schumpeter.[18] The response of one of those whose work she discusses, fellow Harvard professor Clayton Christensen, was that her article was "a criminal act of dishonesty—at Harvard, of all places".[19]
From 2011 to 2013, Lepore was a visiting scholar of Phi Beta Kappa society. She has delivered the Theodore H. White Lecture on the Press and Politics at Harvard Kennedy School (2015), the John L. Hatfield Lecture at Lafayette College (2015), the Lewis Walpole Library Lecture at Yale (2013), the Harry F. Camp Memorial Lecture at Stanford (2013), the University of Kansas Humanities Lecture (2013), the Joanna Jackson Goldman Memorial Lectures at the New York Public Library (2012), the Kephardt Lecture at Villanova (2011), the Stafford-Little Lecture at Princeton (2010), and the Walker Horizon Lecture at DePauw (2009). She is the president of the Society of American Historians and an Emeritus Commissioner of the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery. She has been a consultant and contributor to documentary and public history projects. Her three-part story "The Search for Big Brown" was broadcast on The New Yorker Radio Hour in 2015.
In February 2022, Lepore was one of 38 Harvard faculty to sign a letter to The Harvard Crimson defending Professor John Comaroff, who had been found to have violated the university's sexual and professional conduct policies. The letter defended Comaroff as "an excellent colleague, advisor and committed university citizen" and expressed dismay over his being sanctioned by the university.[20] After students filed a lawsuit with detailed allegations of Comaroff's actions and the university's failure to respond, Lepore was one of several signatories to say that she wished to retract her signature.[21]
Selected awards and honors
- 1998 Elected member of the American Antiquarian Society[22]
- 1998 Ralph Waldo Emerson Award of Phi Beta Kappa society for The Name of War[11]
- 1999 Bancroft Prize for The Name of War[11]
- 2006 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award (nonfiction) for New York Burning
- 2014 Elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences[23]
- 2014 Mark Lynton History Prize for Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin[24]
- 2014 Elected to the American Philosophical Society[25]
- 2015 American History Book Prize for The Secret History of Wonder Woman[2]
- 2021 Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thought[26]
- 2026 Pulitzer Prize for History for We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution[27]
Publications
- The Name of War: King Philip's War and the Origins of American Identity. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 1998. ISBN 978-0-679-44686-6.
- Encounters in the New World: A History in Documents. New York: Oxford University Press. 2000. ISBN 978-0-19-510513-1.
- A Is for American: Letters and Other Characters in the Newly United States. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 2002. ISBN 978-0-375-40449-8.
- New York Burning: Liberty, Slavery, and Conspiracy in Eighteenth-century Manhattan. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 2005. ISBN 978-1-4000-4029-2.
- The Whites of Their Eyes: The Tea Party's Revolution and the Battle Over American History. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. 2010. ISBN 978-0-691-15027-7.
- The Mansion of Happiness: A History of Life and Death. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 2012. ISBN 978-0-307-59299-6.
- The Story of America: Essays on Origins. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. 2012. ISBN 978-0-691-15399-5.
- Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 2013. ISBN 978-0-307-95834-1.
- The Secret History of Wonder Woman. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 2014. ISBN 978-0-385-35404-2.[28]
- Joe Gould's Teeth. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 2016. ISBN 978-1-101-94758-6.
- These Truths: A History of the United States. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. 2018. ISBN 978-0-393-63524-9.
- This America: The Case for the Nation. New York: Liveright. 2019. ISBN 978-1-63149-641-7.
- If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future. New York: Liveright. 2020. ISBN 978-1-63149-611-0.
- The Deadline. New York: Liveright. 2023. ISBN 978-1-63149-612-7.[29][30][31]
- We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution. New York: Liveright. 2025. ISBN 978-1-63149-608-0.[32][33][34]
See also
- Popular history – Genre of historiography
References
- http://www.jilllepore.com.
{{cite news}}: Missing or empty|title=(help) - Schuessler, Jennifer (February 17, 2015). "A Book Prize for Wonder Woman". ArtsBeat. The New York Times. Retrieved July 4, 2019.
- Alter, Alexandra; Khatib, Joumana; Cowles, Greg (May 4, 2026). "Pulitzer Prizes 2026: A Guide to the Winning Books and Finalists". The New York Times. Retrieved May 4, 2026.
- Schuessler, Jennifer (September 16, 2018). "Jill Lepore on Writing the Story of America (in 1,000 Pages or Less)". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved July 4, 2019.
- Silber, Maia (March 6, 2014). "Jill Lepore: A Historian's History". www.thecrimson.com. Harvard Crimson. Retrieved September 28, 2017.
- "The Rescued Portrait of My Italian Grandmother".
- Mari, Francesca (Spring 2013). "The Microhistorian". Dissent Magazine. Retrieved July 4, 2019.
- "The Public Historian – A Conversation with Jill Lepore". Humanities Magazine. September–October 2009.
- "Jill Lepore Speaks on February 28". Endicott College. Retrieved August 26, 2021.
- "Jill Lepore". Tufts Now. May 2, 2014. Archived from the original on July 4, 2019. Retrieved July 4, 2019.
- "Jill Lepore", Faculty, Harvard University, accessed October 12, 2010.
- "Jill Lepore". Harvard Open Scholar. Retrieved March 19, 2015.
- Lepore, Jill (1999). The Name of War. Vintage. pp. Preface. ISBN 978-0-375-70262-4.
- "The Bancroft Prizes: Previous Awards | Columbia University Libraries". library.columbia.edu. Retrieved February 28, 2025.
- "Biography". Harvard University. Harvard University. Retrieved April 15, 2016.
- Lepore, Jill (2014). Story of America : essays on origins. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. p. 15. ISBN 978-0-691-15959-1.
- "The New Yorker - Contributors". The New Yorker. Retrieved March 19, 2015.
- "The Disruption Machine". The New Yorker. June 16, 2014. Retrieved June 24, 2014.
- "Clayton Christensen Responds to New Yorker Takedown of 'Disruptive Innovation'". Bloomberg. Retrieved June 20, 2014.
- "38 Harvard Faculty Sign Open Letter Questioning Results of Misconduct Investigations into Prof. John Comaroff". Retrieved February 8, 2022.
- "3 graduate students file sexual harassment suit against prominent Harvard anthropology professor". The Boston Globe. Retrieved February 8, 2022.
- "MemberListL | American Antiquarian Society".
- Schuessler, Jennifer (April 23, 2014). "A new class of American Fellows". Arts Beat Blog. The New York Times. Retrieved March 19, 2015.
- "Lukas Prizes: Past Winners and Jurors – Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism". www.journalism.columbia.edu. Archived from the original on December 22, 2015. Retrieved April 5, 2016.
- "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved March 12, 2021.
- "Jill Lepore ist Hannah-Arendt-Preisträgerin für politisches Denken 2021 - Pressestelle des Senats".
- Associated Press and agencies (May 4, 2026). "Feminism play Liberation and first world war novel Angel Down among Pulitzer winners". The Guardian. Retrieved May 4, 2026.
- Garner, Dwight (October 23, 2014). "Books - Her Past Unchained 'The Secret History of Wonder Woman,' by Jill Lepore". The New York Times. Retrieved October 23, 2014.
- Waxman, Olivia B. (August 24, 2023). "Why Historian Jill Lepore Hated Barbie". Time. Retrieved September 2, 2023.
- "Journalist Jill Lepore compiles new book of essays, "The Deadline"". WYPR. Retrieved August 2, 2024.
- Crosley, Sloane (August 26, 2023). "Jill Lepore Revisits American Myths With an Eye to the Present". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved August 2, 2024.
- "Jill Lepore Thinks the U.S. Constitution Might Break America". September 14, 2025. Retrieved September 28, 2025.
- "A Popular Historian's Skewed Vision of the Law". National Review. January 22, 2026. Retrieved May 5, 2026.
- "Amend It, Don't End It". Claremont Review of Books. Retrieved May 5, 2026.
External links
====
Jill Lepore
Jill Lepore, a staff writer, has been contributing to The New Yorker since 2005. Her books include “We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution,” which won the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for history and was long-listed for the 2026 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction; “The Name of War,” which won a Bancroft Prize; “New York Burning,” which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for history; “Book of Ages,” a finalist for the National Book Award; “The Secret History of Wonder Woman”; the international best-seller “These Truths: A History of the United States”; and “The Deadline,” which received a PEN America award for the art of the essay. She is the host of the podcast “The Last Archive” and of the BBC Radio 4 program “X-Man: The Elon Musk Origin Story.”
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Jill Lepore
Jill Lepore, a staff writer, has been contributing to The New Yorker since 2005. Her books include “We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution,” which won the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for history and was long-listed for the 2026 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction; “The Name of War,” which won a Bancroft Prize; “New York Burning,” which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for history; “Book of Ages,” a finalist for the National Book Award; “The Secret History of Wonder Woman”; the international best-seller “These Truths: A History of the United States”; and “The Deadline,” which received a PEN America award for the art of the essay. She is the host of the podcast “The Last Archive” and of the BBC Radio 4 program “X-Man: The Elon Musk Origin Story.”Read less
Jill Lepore
Jill Lepore, a staff writer, has been contributing to The New Yorker since 2005. Her books include “We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution,” which won the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for history and was long-listed for the 2026 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction; “The Name of War,” which won a Bancroft Prize; “New York Burning,” which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for history; “Book of Ages,” a finalist for the National Book Award; “The Secret History of Wonder Woman”; the international best-seller “These Truths: A History of the United States”; and “The Deadline,” which received a PEN America award for the art of the essay. She is the host of the podcast “The Last Archive” and of the BBC Radio 4 program “X-Man: The Elon Musk Origin Story.”Read less
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How do you bring an American-history textbook up to date when the country’s past has become a political battleground?
The Current Cinema
What “The Sheep Detectives” Doesn’t Understand About Sheep
The new film, starring Hugh Jackman and Emma Thompson, is based on a near-perfect “sheep crime novel”—but the adaptation shows disappointingly little interest in the animal mind.
American Chronicles
Was the Declaration of Independence Better Before the Edits?
Amid contention, criticism, and compromise, a divided nation had to present a unified front. It came at a cost.
Annals of Technology
Does A.I. Need a Constitution?
A new set of precepts is meant to make the chatbot Claude wise, decent, and safe. It also marks a striking transfer of public responsibility from constitutional government to private tech firms.
The Lede
Do U.S. Presidents Have the Power to Declare War?
On paper, declaring war is reserved for Congress. The Tonkin Gulf Resolution turned a constitutional requirement into a legislative habit of looking away.
American Chronicles
Scandal, Protest, Goofiness, and Grandeur at the U.S. Bicentennial
This year marks the two-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of the nation’s founding. The two hundredth wasn’t exactly smooth sailing.
Personal History
Living in Tracy Chapman’s House
Fresh out of college, we were a bunch of misfits, in a chaotic, run-down communal home, desperately trying to figure out who we were meant to be.
Essay
Revisiting Minnesota’s “Open House” Exhibition in the Age of ICE
Long before the federal onslaught, a Twin Cities museum showed what it meant to find a home in America.
A Critic at Large
When Bernie Sanders Headed for the Hills
Early in his life, Sanders left the streets of Brooklyn for the woodlands of Vermont. What did the man bring to the state—and what did the state bring to the man?
The Daily
How Should We Celebrate America’s Birthday?
From the daily newsletter: the conflicting approaches to honoring the nation’s semiquincentennial.
American Chronicles
What Was the American Revolution For?
Amid plans to mark the nation’s semiquincentennial, many are asking whether or not the people really do rule, and whether the law is still king.
Reflections
Trump and the Presidency That Wouldn’t Shut Up
His posts and rants are omnipresent, ugly, and unhinged. Don’t look to history to make it make sense.
Comment
The Trump Administration’s Efforts to Reshape America’s Past
Ahead of next year’s two-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the White House has issued a directive to the Smithsonian.
The Daily
“In case of emergency, break open a book.”
From the daily newsletter: looking for sense and solace in Trump 2.0. Plus: the bureaucratic nightmare of being trans right now; and “The Great Gatsby” turns one hundred.
American Chronicles
A Hundred Classics to Get Me Through a Hundred Days of Trump
Each morning, before the day’s decree, I turned to a slim book, hoping for sense, or solace.
American Chronicles
How an American Radical Reinvented Back-Yard Gardening
Ruth Stout didn’t plow, dig, water, or weed—and now her “no-work” method is everywhere. But her secrets went beyond the garden plot.
American Chronicles
The Editorial Battles That Made The New Yorker
The magazine has three golden rules: never write about writers, editors, or the magazine. On the occasion of our hundredth anniversary, we’re breaking them all.
The Lede
What You Can Do with an Electric Volkswagen Bus
I took the new VW ID. Buzz for a drive down memory lane. Things got bumpy.
Dispatches
Democrats Tried to Counter Donald Trump’s Viciousness Toward Women with Condescension
The Harris campaign felt the need to remind women voters that they can vote for whomever they want. Women understood this. The campaign failed to.
A Critic at Large
The Artificial State
As American civic life has become increasingly shaped by algorithms, trust in government has plummeted. Is there any turning back?
Onward and Upward with Technology
Is a Chat with a Bot a Conversation?
An artificial voice has long been a dream of tinkerers and technologists. Now that A.I. can talk, though, we may forget who we’re talking to.
A Critic at Large
The Hunt for John Wilkes Booth Goes On
“Manhunt,” a new television miniseries, depicts the pursuit of Lincoln’s killer. But the public appetite for tales about the chase began even as it was happening.
Comment
Will the Supreme Court Now Review More Constitutional Amendments?
After their ruling on a Fourteenth Amendment case, which keeps Donald Trump on the ballot, will the Justices be willing to revisit Dobbs, or Second Amendment cases?
Books
The Architect of Our Divided Supreme Court
A hundred years ago, Chief Justice William Howard Taft made the Court more efficient and more powerful. His interventions marked a turning point whose effects are still being felt.
American Chronicles
What Happened When the U.S. Failed to Prosecute an Insurrectionist Ex-President
After the Civil War, Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederacy, was to be tried for treason. Does the debacle hold lessons for the trials awaiting Donald Trump?
Daily Comment
The World According to Elon Musk’s Grandfather
What happened to antisemitic rants before social media.
Books
How Elon Musk Went from Superhero to Supervillain
Walter Isaacson’s new biography depicts a man who wields more power than almost any other person on the planet but seems estranged from humanity itself.
The Weekend Essay
Watching Childhood End in My Back Yard
For seven years, I helped kids stage a series of silly, madcap musicals. I didn’t realize that it couldn’t last.
Cultural Comment
Elon Musk’s X Factor
The surprising personal and cultural reasons for his “X” affection and rebranding of Twitter.
Books
The Bear in Your Back Yard
Throughout North America, they’re showing up in unexpected places. Can we coexist?
The Weekend Essay
The View from Inside Beatlemania
In 1964, on the band’s first world tour, Paul McCartney took pictures that have only recently been discovered. What do they show us?
The Control of Nature
What We Owe Our Trees
Forests fed us, housed us, and made our way of life possible. But they can’t save us if we can’t save them.
American Chronicles
The Data Delusion
We’ve uploaded everything anyone has ever known onto a worldwide network of machines. What if it doesn’t have all the answers?
Onward and Upward in the Garden
What We Learn from Leafing Through Seed Catalogues
They promise forty-pound beets, rhubarb that tastes like wine, tomatoes that look like stained-glass windows, and world salvation. It doesn’t hurt to dream.
A Critic at Large
What the January 6th Report Is Missing
The investigative committee singles out Trump for his role in the Capitol attack. As prosecution, the report is thorough. But as historical explanation it’s a mess.
Life and Letters
Is Mick Herron the Best Spy Novelist of His Generation?
In his “Slough House” thrillers, the screwups save the day—and there’s a very fine line between comedy and catastrophe.
Comment
The Return of the Wild Turkey
In New England, the birds were once hunted nearly to extinction; now they’re swarming the streets like they own the place. Sometimes turnabout is fowl play.
American Chronicles
The Case Against the Twitter Apology
Our twenty-first-century culture of performed remorse has become a sorry spectacle.
Annals of Inquiry
The United States’ Unamendable Constitution
How our inability to change America’s most important document is deforming our politics and government.
Comment
Bringing Back the Woolly Mammoth
Americans have long understood the species’ extinction as a warning. But is trying to “de-extinct” it really a good idea?
Dept. of Transportation
The VW Bus Took the Sixties on the Road. Now It’s Getting a Twenty-first-Century Makeover
Once, it sparked dreams of community and counterculture. What’s gained—and lost—when flower power is electrified?
Dept. of Heirlooms
The Rescued Portrait of My Italian Grandmother
How a matriarch’s image was lost and found.
Daily Comment
The Supreme Court’s Selective Memory
The Court’s originalist justification for striking down a New York gun law is more than capricious—it relies on a fundamentally anti-democratic historical record that deliberately excludes women and people of color.
Books
Bicycles Have Evolved. Have We?
From the velocipede to the ten-speed, biking innovations brought riders freedom. But in a world built for cars, life behind handlebars is both charmed and dangerous.
Comment
After the Failed Senate Bill on Abortion
If the Democratic response to Justice Alito’s draft opinion was largely rhetorical, was it also a missed opportunity?
Daily Comment
Of Course the Constitution Has Nothing to Say About Abortion
There is no mention of the procedure in a four-thousand-word document crafted by fifty-five men in 1787. This seems to be a surprise to Samuel Alito.
American Chronicles
Why the School Wars Still Rage
From evolution to anti-racism, parents and progressives have clashed for a century over who gets to tell our origin stories.
Books
How the Week Organizes and Tyrannizes Our Lives
From work schedules to TV seasons to baseball games, the seven-day cycle has long ordered American society. Will we ever get rid of it?
American Chronicles
When Black History Is Unearthed, Who Gets to Speak for the Dead?
Efforts to rescue African American burial grounds and remains have exposed deep conflicts over inheritance and representation.
A Critic at Large
Facebook’s Broken Vows
How the company’s pledge to bring the world together wound up pulling us apart.
American Chronicles
Burnout: Modern Affliction or Human Condition?
As a diagnosis, it’s too vague to be helpful—but its rise tells us a lot about the way we work.
Page-Turner
How Do Plague Stories End?
In the literature of contagion, when society is finally free of disease, it’s up to humanity to decide how to begin again.
A Critic at Large
When Constitutions Took Over the World
Starting in the eighteenth century, citizens were promised their rights in print. Was this new age spurred by the ideals of the Enlightenment or by the imperatives of global warfare?
Books
The Next Cyberattack Is Already Under Way
Amid a global gold rush for digital weapons, the infrastructure of our daily lives has never been more vulnerable.
A Critic at Large
What’s Wrong with the Way We Work
Americans are told to give their all—time, labor, and passion—to their jobs. But do their jobs give enough back?
Daily Comment
What Should We Call the Sixth of January?
What began as a protest, rally, and march ended as something altogether different—a day of anarchy that challenges the terminology of history.
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