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These Truths: A History of the United States
by Jill Lepore (Author) Format: Paperback
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars (4,599)
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Widely hailed for its "sweeping, sobering account of the American past" (New York Times Book Review), Jill Lepore's one-volume history of America 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. 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 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.
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These Truths: A History of the United States
Product details
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
Publication date : 22 October 2019
Edition : 1st
Language : English
Print length : 960 pages
ISBN-10 : 0393357422
ISBN-13 : 978-0393357424
Item weight : 907 g
Dimensions : 15.49 x 4.06 x 23.37 cm
Best Sellers Rank: 70,926 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)7 in United States History Textbooks
43 in U.S. State & Local History
266 in Modern History (Books)
Customer Reviews:
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars (4,599)
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Jill Lepore
Jill Lepore is the David Woods Kemper '41 Professor of American History at Harvard University and a staff writer at The New Yorker. She received her Ph.D. in American Studies from Yale in 1995. Her first book, "The Name of War," won the Bancroft Prize; her 2005 book, "New York Burning," was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. In 2008 she published "Blindspot," a mock eighteenth-century novel, jointly written with Jane Kamensky. Lepore's most recent book, "The Whites of Their Eyes," is a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice.
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From Australia
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du
5.0 out of 5 stars Recommend to readReviewed in Australia on 9 March 2020
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Good book and at a time where we need the truths the most. Full of funny historical facts and details.
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Anthony E. Moore
5.0 out of 5 stars Why America isReviewed in Australia on 1 May 2019
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This wonderful and detailed history takes us from the savage and religious origins to where and why America is today.
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Christine Wittlinger
3.0 out of 5 stars Very nice writing style and some new and interesting perspectives.Reviewed in Australia on 29 January 2021
Format: Hardcover
Nevertheless, it can hardly count as a compendium of the History of the United States. Instead, in vast parts, it merely reflects the zeitgeist of the current political left in the US. However, since it was extremely well written and informative in regards to some sections of American History, I can cautiously recommend it. However, I would say its reading requires ideally a lot of background knowledge, particularly in order to debunk or expand some of the relatively one-sided opinions and hypotheses it presents us with. Imagining that students learn about American History from it (or other sources with similar content) only would really not be a pleasant perspective.
Written by Miguel Bader
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From other countries
Maria Jose
5.0 out of 5 stars PerfectoReviewed in Spain on 29 December 2019
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Perfecto
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Schryps
5.0 out of 5 stars Wohl eines der besten Bücher über die USA vor TrumpReviewed in Germany on 21 September 2025
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Was die USA waren, bevor eine Ballung aus Kapital, Technologie und überheblicher Ideologie die Führungsmacht des Westens aus den Angeln hob. Hervorragend geschrieben, a lot of value for your buck!!
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BARRY JOSEPH
5.0 out of 5 stars serviceReviewed in the Netherlands on 27 September 2025
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take the time and you will need it but it is worth it
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Client d'Amazon
5.0 out of 5 stars Une superbe Histoire pas comme les autres de la dévastation du nouveau monde. Bravo Ms Lepore.Reviewed in France on 6 September 2021
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J'aime lire l'histoire pour comprendre où nous allons, et à quel prix.
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Abhishek Kumar
5.0 out of 5 stars Very goodReviewed in India on 29 August 2020
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Jill lepore has made history a fascinating subject.
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Daniel James Fogarty
5.0 out of 5 stars An eminently readable American historyReviewed in Brazil on 24 October 2023
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This is the first thing I've read of Jill Lepore, apart from an article in the New Yorker. I can't wait to read more from her. In this book, history becomes narrative, never bogged down in unneeded density. Those people who were there come alive on the page, and the themes of each period are plain to see.
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Richard List
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent- a brilliant political historyReviewed in the United Kingdom on 23 April 2025
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This is a book of exceptional quality. Lepores knowledge is deep, she is superbly analytical and provides tremendous insight into the history of the United States. This is certainly not a standard history, it is fundamentally political and I would humbly suggest there are few who will not learn much, or see things afresh, after reading (or listening to) this book. A magnificent achievement and highly significant contribution.
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Marcello Mazzucotelli
5.0 out of 5 stars Bella edizione, anche senza copertina rigidaReviewed in Italy on 25 November 2020
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
Libro molto corposo, sono solo all'inizio ma é scritto benissimo e mi sta appassionando molto. La versione "paperback" o copertina non rigida é comunque molto ben fatta e ha il grande vantaggio di essere economica.
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渡邉知行
5.0 out of 5 stars 素晴らしい一冊Reviewed in Japan on 19 July 2020
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米国史を知るのに最高の一冊。
面白い！
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Scott Schiefelbein
5.0 out of 5 stars A magnificent single volume history of the United States and our founding aspirationsReviewed in the United States on 6 May 2025
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This is a re-read for me, and upon a second review this book hits a lot harder. When I first read "These Truths," by Harvard history prof Jill Lepore, I somehow focused more on what she was leaving out than including . . . perhaps I was so shocked that someone dared to write a single-volume history of the United States that my judgment was knocked askew. I should have remembered the core of appreciating any creative work - look at what it is, not what it isn't.
And by any estimation, "These Truths" is an amazing, unflinching look at American history. Lepore asks the core question - has America lived up to the founding "truths" of equality for all, natural rights for all, and self-government for all? As Lepore points out, a country promoting equal rights for all that is founded on slavery and initially denied women the right to vote is going to have some reckoning to do.
Lepore informs the reader up front that this book is a political history, so that whole swaths of historical events and analysis is outside the book's scope. Even with that focus, it's obvious that "These Truths" needs to move quickly through its points . . . even a 900-page book cannot cover everything as thoroughly as it deserves. But Lepore's narrative flows extremely well - this is history, but it is not "history for historians," where jargon and myopia frustrate the casual reader. This is broad, sweeping stuff that includes some of the most famous events in American history - the rise of Jacksonian Democracy, the Civil War, Watergate, and so on. But it also includes several aspects of U.S. history that readers may not be as familiar with, such as the rise of political consultants in the modern age. The through line of all these events is Lepore's question - how well was America living up to its founding truths?
Perhaps surprisingly, in Lepore's telling, the modern age sees as much of a betrayal of those truths as the American decades that included slavery and the denial of the right of women to vote. Americans have abandoned their obligation to become informed through independent analysis and simply want to be told what to think, and even the progressive left - through speech codes and the like - has become as intolerant of dissent (and, in Lepore's analysis, free thinking) as the right wingers.
If you are looking for a jingoistic "was America always great or always really great?" analysis, this is not the book for you. Lepore is critical of America, but she does not indict America. This is not a "America was flawed from the beginning" assessment. Rather, the tone of Lepore's book is of respectful awe that America dared to use such high-minded founding truths in the first place, but then holds America to the scrutiny of whether we have risen to the moment by honoring those truths. Sometimes we have, and many times we have not.
If you're looking for a readable, comprehensive, thoughtful single-volume history of the United States, this is a terrific choice. This is a bold undertaking and one that invites criticism (and Lepore's book has its critics). I would just ask the critics of this book to name a better one-volume history that should be read instead, and those answers would be quite revealing.
Highest recommendation.
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars an objective, beautifully written historyReviewed in Canada on 6 December 2018
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This is an objective, balanced, and beautifully written history. She points out the good as much as she points out the bad, often highlighting ironic contradictions along the way. It's all written in a wonderfully majestic, poetic yet simple style. Every page or two I would be taken aback by a sentence or metaphor. Easily the most readable American history book of them all.
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sreeni
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant effortReviewed in India on 5 January 2019
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As honest review of the history of USA as possible..
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M Clark
5.0 out of 5 stars The truths listed in the Declaration of IndependenceReviewed in Germany on 14 March 2021
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"TheseTruths" looks at the truths listed in the Declaration of Independence and how truthful they have been seen by Americans throughout US history. As such, the book is more of an extended essay than a pure history of the US.
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markb
5.0 out of 5 stars Thought provoking reflection on America's founding truthsReviewed in the United Kingdom on 23 February 2021
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This book is far from a standard political, social and economic history of the USA. Instead it is a considered in-depth reflection on how the founding principles of the American constitution have developed since the United States came into being 250 years ago. In parallel, Lepore describes how mass communication has evolved to inform, or to distort, U.S. politics.
She points out the irony of how a nation founded on a constitutional commitment to equality was in fact built on inequality. A constitution tolerating slavery accepted black people were property and would only count as three fifths of a person. From the outset then slavery represented a betrayal of America's founding ideals. Civil War and the abolition of slavery could not just simply dispel racism from American life. The now highly polarised American party system evolved in a context of how debates about how human rights and dignity were to be understood and put into practice. The book ends somewhere around Trump's mid-term. The now President Biden has a walk on part as a hardbitten senator.
Lepore also charts how American newspapers, opinion polls, broadcasting and social media have evolved. In her view, the mass media has grown by firing politics to become evermore combative and partisan. The result has been a compromised US political culture resting on parties shouting the opposition down, rather than on working towards reaching an understanding of a common good.
This book helps us understand the persistence of racial conflict, white supremacy and injustice in the USA up to the present day. It offers an historically informed perspective, directly linking the nation's founding fathers with twentieth century Civil Rights campaigns and with today's Black Lives Matter movement.
It helps readers, especially those like me from the other side of the pond, understand how America's constitution remains a work in progress. The founding truths of the USA - equality, freedom and democracy - will always be fought over.
Whilst this is a lengthy detailed book, it is well worth persisting. I certainly feel reading Lepore's work has helped me to a greater appreciation of the lifeblood and pulse of American culture and politics.
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tornado
5.0 out of 5 stars Une véritable Odyssée extrêmement bien documentée.Reviewed in Canada on 12 January 2023
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Je ne peux que recommander ce gros livre d’histoire magnifiquement écrit pour qui veut dépasser les clichés sur l’histoire américaine. On ne peut plus penser la force et la vulnérabilité de cette république et sa démocratie après cette lecture.
Vous voulez approfondir votre connaissance des États-Unis aujourd’hui, le livre de Jill Lepore est une excellente entrée en matière.
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EAS
5.0 out of 5 stars The best single-volume history of the United StatesReviewed in the United States on 30 January 2026
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This was without a doubt the best history volume I have ever read. Lepore's writing style is engaging, making this book a "page-turner," even though the subject matter is very familiar. I couldn't put the book down. She presents the history of the US in such a way that I just wanted to keep reading. But it wasn't just her writing style--the content was equally impressive. No one can possible include every historical event in a single volume, but her choices are terrific, giving a comprehensive and fair summation of the history of the US. Simply put, this history explores the greatness of the nation based on the founding idea of "these truths" without ignoring the ways that many people opposed and denied the very concepts included in that extended phrase from the Declaration of Independence.
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Mario Sergio Lacerda
5.0 out of 5 stars ValiosoReviewed in Brazil on 3 August 2023
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Conteúdo histórico sensacional
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historybuff
4.0 out of 5 stars Lots of information wrapped into about 800 pages.Reviewed in the United States on 2 February 2019
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Yes, just finished and wanted to see what others wrote in review. Whew! I see Lepore's work is criticized (appropriately) on many accounts. Most of this book which I read through without notice and did find some statements that I thought might be unintentional oversight.
Often when finding a work about the "Great American Experiment" the author certainly will taint the reader with his/her frame of mind which will move me towards their (political, religious, social, etc.) position, because I have a respect for the writer. To have a writer explain what a 19th century speech is saying in words used differently than I am exposed to is helpful. So many of these books are not written alone, but with others to research, proofread and advise. I seem to want to take the references noted in the notes and read then as well. But, time is rare, so it may not become a reality.
Lapore has taken on an enormous and always interpretive (to the reader and his/her experiences) subject. Whenever the U.S. Constitution is up for discussion, it's sort of like the Bible, good luck. The History of the U. S. of America can easily fall into the ungrateful position. As I read it (as a possible history book) I thought how different this book is from the books I was taught mid 20th century. Wow, let's open the doors to the case of the black American, the races of all whom have for many reasons come to live and prosper in this country. She brings more to the point as a more liberally (that's how we seem to look at writers of this ilk) minded enlightened writer. I liked her attempt at consolidating such a long and rich history. It's not how much is left out of this commentary, but it's how she has picked at what are "important" issues that make the reader see who Americans are, and why we think and do act as we do.
Sure, we can read other American history historians books and wonder why the important issues in those books are not explained at length in her book about say, the Gold Rush, or the triumphant antebellum orators of AW, JC and HC. But, really no one should expect the details of such exciting and nation forming issues to be put into one volume.
If you are just a reader who enjoys American History, this is delightful, and with care think about some of the facts, If you're reading this (I naturally assume you have red much of detailed American, issues and biographies, etc.) you will see some of the gaffs, but just correct them and go on.
Is it the editor's responsibility to find and make corrections, or a league of researchers? Lepore is evidently a very busy academic; teaching, journalistic writings, essays and offers, commentary, books, etc. I'm giving her a break and will say I enjoyed this offer.
I do however, give much credit for other reviewers much more poised, evidently from their expertise than I, and hope you check out the details of her (minor) faults.
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Amazon Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars Want to understand why the USA is what it is today?Reviewed in Canada on 14 November 2020
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This book gives an interesting review of how the Unmuted States constitution developed, why it contains many of the provisions that are controversial to this day, and how the USA, in compromising to put the nation back together the way it did, shaped the current issues it faces today. Black Lives, Electoral College, divided communities, etc. It seems authoritative and complete.
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George Thomas
4.0 out of 5 stars Mama triedReviewed in India on 15 August 2020
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Written with verve, vivacity and wit this is an ambitious work. It is not a dispassionate recital of events. The author has opinions and is not shy to state them, sometimes with vehemence and sometimes gently. What then is there to dislike? The main, almost shocking void, is the near absence of Native Americans from the narrative. Except for a few cursory references, it seems as if they had and have no agency. Surely the history of one of the major genocides documented in history, and the brave struggle to prevent it, deserves at least fifty pages if not a hundred in a book of nearly 800 pages of narrative.
The story of slavery and African Americans still sounds like a white person's narrative - the horrors are chronicled, but to me, a native of a country once colonized (India), it still reads like mostly a white view. In the words of the Grateful Dead, Mama tried. Did she succeed? I think not.
Part four (The Machine) 1946 to 2016 seems to have knocked the author off balance. This is history at least parts of which many readers have lived through and may have opinions on. The author seems to have a visceral dislike for Bill Clinton and he is heaped with opprobrium.
The author has a mostly negative view of the internet and social media. For us in the Third World, the internet has been truly a positive force. As a student, I remember struggling to find references because our libraries were (and still are) poorly funded. In the last decade or so, people like me can access virtually any document thanks to the internet.
Is a dystopian view of the future justified? The times they are achanging. As Bob Dylan said,
Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin ....
Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin'
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'
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buncl
4.0 out of 5 stars ein StandardwerkReviewed in Germany on 14 May 2025
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... um zu verstehen, wie die Vereinigten Staaten zu dem wurden, was heute Gesprächsthema Nr. 1 ist: zwar merklich mit linksliberaler Brille verfasst, dennoch eine bereichernde Lektüre, im Kontrast zum täglichen Gegackere der deutschen Medien. Deren Konsumenten hätten bekanntlich zu 90% Frau Harris gewählt, was meinen Kulturpessimismus weiter befördert.
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Amazon Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars Answers all those questions about the modern USAReviewed in the United Kingdom on 30 June 2020
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Lepore ends her narrative with the election in 2016 (and who can blame her?) For those of us around the world who want to understand how the US ended up where it did at this time, this is a scholarly, lucid and highly informative account. This is not a quick or easy book, but is well worth the time and effort that you will need to invest.
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eduardo almeida
4.0 out of 5 stars Um Estados Unidos DiferenteReviewed in Brazil on 17 June 2021
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Uma abordagem diferente da história dos Estados Unidos. Mostrando muito daquilo que outros livros omitem
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gabriele schmitt-meyer
5.0 out of 5 stars TOLLES P-L VERHÄLTNIS!Reviewed in Germany on 27 February 2020
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SEHR GUT
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Himanshu Manchanda
2.0 out of 5 stars Poor quality productReviewed in India on 7 November 2023
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The book has a big stain at the bottom as shown in the image. The pages have started turning out to be yellow indicating this is likely an old book. Disappointing overall given the high price of the book.
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blue
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant!!!!Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 27 July 2025
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Guaranteed to get the MAGA crowd frothing at the mouth - well the few who know how to read that is. A brilliant gripping political history, fluent and to the point. The more you read the stranger the USA becomes.
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Sigmund Travis
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book but you will have read more than the percentage shows.Reviewed in Canada on 27 December 2025
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These Truths is an extraordinary book. However, this review is for Amazon Kindle Division. The book is accurate in its Kindle edition. The pages are accurate and coincide with the print edition. However, the percent read is inaccurate. When you reach the end of the book, the percentage read shows 67%.
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Mark Twain
5.0 out of 5 stars A superb history book that reads like a novel you wish would never endReviewed in the United States on 12 October 2018
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Jill Lepore is a national treasure, a writer-with-attitude who rose from being a secretary at Harvard to chair of its History Department. She is an obsessive researcher, unearthing bits that keep the narrative moving and often funny. She writes for the New Yorker and her obsession with excellent prose and factual detail shows. (In a book this length, there will be exceptions, and on page 674 she commits a howler: "By 2000, the number of foreign-born Americans had risen to 28 million, constituting 29 percent of the U.S. population." This implies a US population of <100 million at a time we know the US had 280+m residents. She meant about ten percent).
Lepore does not mask her politics. She writes with assurance about the tortured history of American racism and sexism without victimizing or sanctifying African Americans or women. Her final chapters reflect a merciless critic of modern NRA/pro-choice religious conservatism and a pen equally dismissive identity liberalism. She is utterly unsparing of her postmodern structuralist colleagues in the academy. She portrays Bill Clintons as a spoiled buffoon and Hillary as smart but politically clueless.
Lepore weaves several themes throughout. America was born to struggle with "These Truths" as described in the opening sentence of the Declaration of Independence. What does "created equal" mean? What are our "inalienable rights"? How can we form a government that reflects "the consent of the governed"? These Truths are, at best, a work in progress -- but the work is noble and worthwhile. She writes as well of the history of single-volume histories of the United States -- acknowledging the shoulders on which her massive contribution stands. She tells the stories of immigrants, native peoples, slaves, and women not only from their perspective but from the perspective of those privileged to rule.
Order this book like you would order a fine meal. Savor each bite and treasure each course not only for the freshness but for the spices and the display. Because when your meal ends some 700 pages later, you will discover that you are not full. If you are like me, you will beg for more.
Final point: I read this in hardback but ordered the Kindle version to enable searches, bookmarks, and notes. I urge Amazon to give a Kindle copy of this or any other book to readers who purchase hardback copies. These are complementary, not rival goods. I am not getting more content, nor is a publisher incurring more cost, when I get the book in both analog and digital formats. There is a place for both, but no reason to charge us twice.
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Antonio Brito
5.0 out of 5 stars A história lida ao revesReviewed in Brazil on 28 December 2020
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Sem usar os clichés comuns mostra o papel importante da escravidão e da mulher na constituição de uma grande nação. Haja fôlego para ler tantas páginas, porém vale o esforço.
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Eric Wolff
3.0 out of 5 stars AnstrengendReviewed in Germany on 24 April 2021
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Für mich persönlich anstrengend zu lesen, da ständig neue Namen / Organisationen etc. genannt werden. Selbstverständlich lebt Geschichte vor allem von den Personen, aber gefühlt auf jeder Seite (tlw. mehrere) neue Personen etc. "eingeführt" zu bekommen, ist zumindest für einen Laien wie mich sehr ermüdend ... Ich war auf der Suche nach einem allgemeinen, einführenden Überblick über die US-amerikanische Geschichte, und da schießt dieses Werk vielfach über das Ziel hinaus. Ich hätte mir gewünscht, dass der Fokus stärker das große Ganze in den Blick nimmt und historisch bedeutsame Ereignisse detaillierter schildert (z.B. finde ich die Ausführungen zu Korea, Vietnam etc. sehr oberflächlich - was aber häufig für meinen Eindruck damit zusammenhängt, dass die Eckdaten z.B. solcher wie der genannten außenpolitischen Konflikte beim Leser vorausgesetzt werden).
Was nicht heißen soll, dass das Werk für Leser mit profunden Vorkenntnissen in amerikanischer Geschichte nicht durchaus gut sein mag.
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Sara Stotzer
5.0 out of 5 stars A Brilliant American History BookReviewed in the United Kingdom on 24 June 2025
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This is my favorite American History Book ever.
Jill Lepore, has obviously researched extensively and writes beautifully, with truthful, clear perspective.
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ASB
1.0 out of 5 stars Book sent in terrible conditionReviewed in India on 27 April 2021
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The book has completely opened up after spending 2K on it
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Michael A
5.0 out of 5 stars A good choice!Reviewed in Canada on 26 January 2020
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In this era of misinformation and outright lies in service to political agendas, it is refreshing to read a history that seems credible and honest. Good read, delivered by service oriented book supplier
I would read this author and use Wordery again! Thanks, guys!
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daveyd
5.0 out of 5 stars Where have all the flowers gone?Reviewed in the United States on 31 October 2018
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On final page 791 under Acknowledgments the author writes "It is a truism that every book takes a life to write".
These Truths is a 789 page tome of scholarly researched and presented manuscript with countless historical incidents.
Early pages tell of the dangers pilgrims confronted in their sixty six day journey of daily uncertainties, questing toward the dreams envisioned at journey's end. The ship was Mayflower; it leaked, a wind was so fierce that a beam split, and a mast bowed. We know they survived and prevailed but, as subsequent pages reveal, countless challenges to history makers never end.
European ships destined for New World opportunities brought along cargoes of unseen diseases including smallpox, measles, bubonic plague, malaria, typhoid, diptheria, dysentery, yellow fever... People of the New World died by numbers in the tens of millions.
The origins and evils of slavery are iterated in many pages and chapters throughout much of the book's first half. Haiti in the eighteenth century was the largest and richest colony in the Caribbean with 452,000 slaves engaged in sugar and coffee production.
George and Martha Washington housed more that 300 slaves at Mr. Vernon. In December, 1799 George died but left a will that freed all slaves under his personal ownership. Many remained under Martha's continuing personal ownership as before George's death.
Many readers may find pages 242-244 perhaps the book's most interesting and pertinent to relations today between Mexico and the U.S.
Referred to as the imperial president by some Americans, James K. Polk lusted after the U.S. acquisition of land masses that now include Oregon, Idaho, Washington, Montana and Wyoming that were in the 1840s, all parts of Mexico. In a defiant demand to Congress, by a narrow margin, Polk was granted permission to wage war wherein under U.S. military superiority a treaty resulted in The addition of one million square miles of Mexico to the U.S., creating a 64 percent increase in Territory. Today's Mexicans know.
The Civil War: 2.1 million Northerners battled 880,000 Southerners in 200 plus conflicts. Seven hundred fifty thousand died, more from disease than from wounds. Five thousand fallen horses and more that 20,000 men from each side punctuated the turning point in the war on July 1 1863 at Gettysburg.
January 1, 1863 was Emancipation Day. Slavery had prevailed for centuries, cut down children; crushed mothers, poisoned a people and nation, free for millions of slaves now to …? They traveled hundreds of miles on foot, on horseback, by stage and by train, searching….
The political and economic power of railroads became more visible and manifest during the 1800's when Congress promoted the growth of corporate interests and a national transportation infrastructure. This prosperity was not shared by farmers and wage workers. Through foreclosures bankers acquired 90 percent of farmland and 1 percent of Americans controlled half of the nation's wealth. This latter dynamic of inequality remains a contemporary force to this day.
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Jonathan D.
5.0 out of 5 stars Both heavy and stirringReviewed in the United Kingdom on 8 February 2021
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This book promises to tell the story of U.S. politics from the first settlers to the present day. But it does so much more.
My knowledge of politics in general, U.S. history, human rights and media, has at least doubled thanks to this exceptional and mighty piece of work.
But there's more. Questions of philosophy I already asked were deepened and crystallised. Questions I hadn't thought of before were seeded in me and regularly tended.
This book is literally mind-expanding.
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Jack Thompson
5.0 out of 5 stars Jill lepore rocks itReviewed in Canada on 2 November 2023
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Very accurate telling if a history many have not heard before
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5.0 out of 5 stars Eye opening and very comprehensive!Reviewed in the United States on 21 March 2026
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This book is perfect for those who want to capture the big picture of American history, sentiment and the main forces and actors behind American politics. If you wonder why we are so polarized and why lasting change is so hard to achieve this book seems to be a great start.
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uwe.o.petersen
2.0 out of 5 stars A History of the United StatesReviewed in Germany on 15 February 2022
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Aus einer sehr linken, fast kommunistischen Sicht geschrieben.
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Andrew Desmond
5.0 out of 5 stars America for Good and IllReviewed in the United States on 2 August 2019
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I thoroughly enjoyed Jill Lepore’s “These Truths”. In one volume, Lepore has encapsulated the European history of the United States. Yet despite having 932 pages including footnotes, Lepore’s style is such that the book is a very easy read. If only more historians could make reading such a comparatively effortless task.
“These Truths” is directed at the general reader. It presupposes no special prior knowledge of American history. In addition, Lepore is able to describe America in a very objective manner. She can see that the country has emerged from a handful of small colonies to become the world’s pre-eminent superpower. But she is also able to see the flaws of slavery, which were a dreadful stain upon the emerging republic. Indeed, the residual after effects of this truly horrible policy are still washing through the system today.
Along the way, Lepore provides some fascinating snippets of information. Two that struck me were:
1. The population of the Americas at the time of Columbus exceeded that of Europe.
2. The population of Hispaniola when Columbus arrived was about three million. Fifty years later had seen the population collapse to a mere five hundred.
I was also taken by Lepore’s description at the end of the book of the American experiment in general:
“A nation born in revolution will forever struggle against chaos. A nation founded on universal rights will wrestle against the forces of particularism. A nation that toppled a hierarchy of birth only to erect a hierarchy of wealth will never know tranquillity. A nation of immigrants cannot close its borders. And a nation born in contradiction, liberty in a land of slavery, sovereignty in a land of conquest, will fight, forever, over the meaning of its history.”
America has been and is a remarkable country that I have had the privilege to visit on numerous occasions. No book in recent times has succeeded as much as “These Truths” in explaining its history.
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Sam Theodore
5.0 out of 5 stars A must readReviewed in the United Kingdom on 12 November 2020
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I did not finish yet but I have the feeling this book should be read by as many people as possible. A different angle on history, one that was incredibly glossed over in the past. The author does not shatter the American myth, but she enriches it. No longer black and white but a wide range of grey.
Highly recommended.
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Sherry Cooper
5.0 out of 5 stars OutstandingReviewed in Canada on 5 March 2021
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A masterpiece--is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand why America is in the current state of division, hatred, and violence.
I wish I believed that everyone would read this.
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Dr. S
5.0 out of 5 stars A must readReviewed in Canada on 3 November 2020
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Extremely well-written and engaging, and a new and important perspective on events.
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mark l wilder
5.0 out of 5 stars perspectiveReviewed in the United States on 6 March 2026
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I for one ( a 75 year old man) am shocked at the direction our country has taken. I kept asking myself "why" when I should have asked myself, "what". What is it about the United States that has allowed the current situation. History is a potent educator. Jill Lepore informs the reader on the dynamics inherent in our beginnings that keep us in cyclical turmoil.
Every American needs to read this book.
Mark Wilder
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Sharris
5.0 out of 5 stars An intelligent and informative readReviewed in the United Kingdom on 3 March 2021
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Makes connections between the divisive politics of America today and the origins of the flawed ideals which lead to the Constitution. An excellent lesson in the evolution of ideas not only in America but in global politics.
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Benn Pamphleteer
4.0 out of 5 stars Well, almost.Reviewed in the United States on 30 May 2026
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This is a long and challenging book, and deserving of attention. Continue, even over the places where the author’s own prejudices and favors challenge her ability to find the essence of what she observes in the U.S. history. What she does reveal is often ugly; keep your own eyes and perceptions open to what we can learn from it.
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pTsd44
3.0 out of 5 stars After the rave reviews, a disappointmentReviewed in the United States on 13 December 2018
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I agree with those who have said we very much need a book of this scope, aim, and ambition: a sweeping political history of the United States, intended also to serve as a kind of civics primer, its topics chosen with an eye to what seems most significant in light of our own rather desperate political situation. I also agree with the author's major interpretative decision: to make slavery, sexism, xenophobia, and ethnic/racial hostility an important part of the central narrative of our history. And I share what seem to be Ms. Lepore's moderately left-of-center political views.
Why then my strong sense of an opportunity missed, a worthwhile project botched? I'll try to list the problems in ascending order of importance.
As is perhaps inevitable when one person attempts something of this scope, there are many factual errors (for example, that in 2000 29% of the US population was foreign-born; that Roosevelt was accompanied to Yalta by "fighter jets," that Allan Bloom was "a literary critic," and so forth). Some of these are so strange that one can't possibly ascribe them to any genuine defects in the author's knowledge; they must be some kind of editing blunder or something going horribly wrong in the text's journey from word-processor to printed text (a single example: the astounding statement, on p.298 of the Kindle version, that Virginia just prior to the Emancipation Proclamation was "a border state not part of the Confederacy"; of course, at the time in question Virginia was hardly a "border state"; Richmond was the capital of the Confederacy)
No author of a work of this kind could reasonably be asked to give an account of the competing interpretations of any/every significant historical event; doing so would require not one but many 900 page volumes. But on some questions, there's an option that lies somewhere between doing this, and adopting/stating a controversial position as though it were a matter of established historical fact, or the majority or consensus view of reputable historians. Two examples of the author doing the latter, both having to do with the Supreme Court. It is true that there is no specific listing of a right of judicial review of Congressional legislation in the Constitution. But to present the Court's assertion of such a right in Marbury v. Madison as a pure and simple power grab (as Lepore does) ignores a great deal of evidence that one of the reasons judicial review was not stated explicitly in the Constitution was that so many people took it for granted. (There's also nothing in the Constitution that says explicitly that whites should rule blacks, or men rule women--but as the author herself repeatedly points out, almost nobody in the America of 1787 thought that things could possibly be otherwise) How else, after all, was the Constitution's claim to be "the supreme law of the land" to be effectuated and enforced? Should it have been left to another branch of the Federal Government, or to the states, or to some kind of negotiated agreement between any or all of these? The only feasible alternative--one which in my opinion should have been adopted by the Framers--would have been to require such Supreme Court decisions to be unanimous, given their extreme gravity, their profoundly anti-democratic character, and the allegedly clear guidance provided by the Constitution. But I digress.
To take another example, the author asserts a kind of interpretive equivalence between the Court finding (in Roe v. Wade) of a "right to privacy" in the Constitution as a basis for abortion rights, and its finding in the Heller decision of an individual "right to bear arms" independent of militia service. This reminds me of one of the hostile definitions of a "liberal": someone who believes that the Constitution contains a right to abortion, but not a right to bear arms. [To forestall any possible misguided outrage here, I support abortion rights and also very strict gun control laws. The problem is that the author treats both these rights as Constitutional hallucinations, inventions, or deliberate distortions. But that's much more clearly the case with the right to an abortion than the right to bear arms.] There are all too many other places where Prof. Lepore adopts a position on a controversial question without any indication, except now and then in a footnote reference, that there are serious evidence-based arguments for opposing or alternative points of view. As mentioned earlier, there has to be some area between entering into endless discussions of historical controversies, and presenting one side of a controversy as undisputed historical fact--especially when the issues involved are really important ones.
But the greatest problem with this book can be simply stated: whatever her many skills and virtues as a historian, Prof. Lepore just does not have the extremely rare combination of analytical and narrative gifts needed to pull off a project like this--perhaps no one does, or ever did, or ever will. The text for long stretches meanders from one topic, event, theme, period in time, or person to another without (often) any discernible rhyme or reason. In my opinion, any reader without a reasonably solid prior grasp of American History will find this book difficult to follow. The writing is flabby and pedestrian; when it strains to go beyond this, it all too often falls into mawkishness or melodrama. There are too many examples of these failed attempts to attain the status of literature or epigram to list here; reading the embarrassing and, frankly, cringe-inducing epilogue/peroration ought to be enough to convince anyone.
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==
CONTENTS ★
★
Introduction: The Question Stated
One The Nature of the Past
Two The Rulers and the Ruled
Three Of Wars and Revolutions
Four The Constitution of a Nation
Part Two THE PEOPLE (1800-1865)
Five A Democracy of Numbers
Six The Soul and the Machine
Seven Of Ships and Shipwrecks
Eight The Face of Battle
Part Three THE STATE (1866-1945)
Nine Of Citizens, Persons, and People
Ten Efficiency and the Masses
Eleven A Constitution of the Air
Twelve The Brutality of Modernity
Part Four THE MACHINE (1946-2016)
Thirteen A World of Knowledge
Fourteen Rights and Wrongs
Fifteen Battle Lines
Sixteen America, Disrupted
Epilogue: The Question Addressed
Acknowledgments
Notes
Illustration Credits
Index
==============
Widely hailed for its "sweeping, sobering account of the American past" (New York Times Book Review), Jill Lepore's one-volume history of America 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. 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 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.
==
From the Publisher
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These Truths: A History of the United StatesProduct details
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
Publication date : 22 October 2019
Edition : 1st
Language : English
Print length : 960 pages
ISBN-10 : 0393357422
ISBN-13 : 978-0393357424
Item weight : 907 g
Dimensions : 15.49 x 4.06 x 23.37 cm
Best Sellers Rank: 70,926 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)7 in United States History Textbooks
43 in U.S. State & Local History
266 in Modern History (Books)
Customer Reviews:
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars (4,599)
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Jill Lepore
Jill Lepore is the David Woods Kemper '41 Professor of American History at Harvard University and a staff writer at The New Yorker. She received her Ph.D. in American Studies from Yale in 1995. Her first book, "The Name of War," won the Bancroft Prize; her 2005 book, "New York Burning," was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. In 2008 she published "Blindspot," a mock eighteenth-century novel, jointly written with Jane Kamensky. Lepore's most recent book, "The Whites of Their Eyes," is a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice.
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From Australia
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du
5.0 out of 5 stars Recommend to readReviewed in Australia on 9 March 2020
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Good book and at a time where we need the truths the most. Full of funny historical facts and details.
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Anthony E. Moore
5.0 out of 5 stars Why America isReviewed in Australia on 1 May 2019
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This wonderful and detailed history takes us from the savage and religious origins to where and why America is today.
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Christine Wittlinger
3.0 out of 5 stars Very nice writing style and some new and interesting perspectives.Reviewed in Australia on 29 January 2021
Format: Hardcover
Nevertheless, it can hardly count as a compendium of the History of the United States. Instead, in vast parts, it merely reflects the zeitgeist of the current political left in the US. However, since it was extremely well written and informative in regards to some sections of American History, I can cautiously recommend it. However, I would say its reading requires ideally a lot of background knowledge, particularly in order to debunk or expand some of the relatively one-sided opinions and hypotheses it presents us with. Imagining that students learn about American History from it (or other sources with similar content) only would really not be a pleasant perspective.
Written by Miguel Bader
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From other countries
Maria Jose
5.0 out of 5 stars PerfectoReviewed in Spain on 29 December 2019
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Perfecto
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Schryps
5.0 out of 5 stars Wohl eines der besten Bücher über die USA vor TrumpReviewed in Germany on 21 September 2025
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Was die USA waren, bevor eine Ballung aus Kapital, Technologie und überheblicher Ideologie die Führungsmacht des Westens aus den Angeln hob. Hervorragend geschrieben, a lot of value for your buck!!
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BARRY JOSEPH
5.0 out of 5 stars serviceReviewed in the Netherlands on 27 September 2025
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take the time and you will need it but it is worth it
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Client d'Amazon
5.0 out of 5 stars Une superbe Histoire pas comme les autres de la dévastation du nouveau monde. Bravo Ms Lepore.Reviewed in France on 6 September 2021
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J'aime lire l'histoire pour comprendre où nous allons, et à quel prix.
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Abhishek Kumar
5.0 out of 5 stars Very goodReviewed in India on 29 August 2020
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Jill lepore has made history a fascinating subject.
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Daniel James Fogarty
5.0 out of 5 stars An eminently readable American historyReviewed in Brazil on 24 October 2023
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This is the first thing I've read of Jill Lepore, apart from an article in the New Yorker. I can't wait to read more from her. In this book, history becomes narrative, never bogged down in unneeded density. Those people who were there come alive on the page, and the themes of each period are plain to see.
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Richard List
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent- a brilliant political historyReviewed in the United Kingdom on 23 April 2025
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This is a book of exceptional quality. Lepores knowledge is deep, she is superbly analytical and provides tremendous insight into the history of the United States. This is certainly not a standard history, it is fundamentally political and I would humbly suggest there are few who will not learn much, or see things afresh, after reading (or listening to) this book. A magnificent achievement and highly significant contribution.
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Marcello Mazzucotelli
5.0 out of 5 stars Bella edizione, anche senza copertina rigidaReviewed in Italy on 25 November 2020
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Libro molto corposo, sono solo all'inizio ma é scritto benissimo e mi sta appassionando molto. La versione "paperback" o copertina non rigida é comunque molto ben fatta e ha il grande vantaggio di essere economica.
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渡邉知行
5.0 out of 5 stars 素晴らしい一冊Reviewed in Japan on 19 July 2020
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米国史を知るのに最高の一冊。
面白い！
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Scott Schiefelbein
5.0 out of 5 stars A magnificent single volume history of the United States and our founding aspirationsReviewed in the United States on 6 May 2025
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This is a re-read for me, and upon a second review this book hits a lot harder. When I first read "These Truths," by Harvard history prof Jill Lepore, I somehow focused more on what she was leaving out than including . . . perhaps I was so shocked that someone dared to write a single-volume history of the United States that my judgment was knocked askew. I should have remembered the core of appreciating any creative work - look at what it is, not what it isn't.
And by any estimation, "These Truths" is an amazing, unflinching look at American history. Lepore asks the core question - has America lived up to the founding "truths" of equality for all, natural rights for all, and self-government for all? As Lepore points out, a country promoting equal rights for all that is founded on slavery and initially denied women the right to vote is going to have some reckoning to do.
Lepore informs the reader up front that this book is a political history, so that whole swaths of historical events and analysis is outside the book's scope. Even with that focus, it's obvious that "These Truths" needs to move quickly through its points . . . even a 900-page book cannot cover everything as thoroughly as it deserves. But Lepore's narrative flows extremely well - this is history, but it is not "history for historians," where jargon and myopia frustrate the casual reader. This is broad, sweeping stuff that includes some of the most famous events in American history - the rise of Jacksonian Democracy, the Civil War, Watergate, and so on. But it also includes several aspects of U.S. history that readers may not be as familiar with, such as the rise of political consultants in the modern age. The through line of all these events is Lepore's question - how well was America living up to its founding truths?
Perhaps surprisingly, in Lepore's telling, the modern age sees as much of a betrayal of those truths as the American decades that included slavery and the denial of the right of women to vote. Americans have abandoned their obligation to become informed through independent analysis and simply want to be told what to think, and even the progressive left - through speech codes and the like - has become as intolerant of dissent (and, in Lepore's analysis, free thinking) as the right wingers.
If you are looking for a jingoistic "was America always great or always really great?" analysis, this is not the book for you. Lepore is critical of America, but she does not indict America. This is not a "America was flawed from the beginning" assessment. Rather, the tone of Lepore's book is of respectful awe that America dared to use such high-minded founding truths in the first place, but then holds America to the scrutiny of whether we have risen to the moment by honoring those truths. Sometimes we have, and many times we have not.
If you're looking for a readable, comprehensive, thoughtful single-volume history of the United States, this is a terrific choice. This is a bold undertaking and one that invites criticism (and Lepore's book has its critics). I would just ask the critics of this book to name a better one-volume history that should be read instead, and those answers would be quite revealing.
Highest recommendation.
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5.0 out of 5 stars an objective, beautifully written historyReviewed in Canada on 6 December 2018
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This is an objective, balanced, and beautifully written history. She points out the good as much as she points out the bad, often highlighting ironic contradictions along the way. It's all written in a wonderfully majestic, poetic yet simple style. Every page or two I would be taken aback by a sentence or metaphor. Easily the most readable American history book of them all.
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sreeni
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant effortReviewed in India on 5 January 2019
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As honest review of the history of USA as possible..
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M Clark
5.0 out of 5 stars The truths listed in the Declaration of IndependenceReviewed in Germany on 14 March 2021
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"TheseTruths" looks at the truths listed in the Declaration of Independence and how truthful they have been seen by Americans throughout US history. As such, the book is more of an extended essay than a pure history of the US.
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markb
5.0 out of 5 stars Thought provoking reflection on America's founding truthsReviewed in the United Kingdom on 23 February 2021
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This book is far from a standard political, social and economic history of the USA. Instead it is a considered in-depth reflection on how the founding principles of the American constitution have developed since the United States came into being 250 years ago. In parallel, Lepore describes how mass communication has evolved to inform, or to distort, U.S. politics.
She points out the irony of how a nation founded on a constitutional commitment to equality was in fact built on inequality. A constitution tolerating slavery accepted black people were property and would only count as three fifths of a person. From the outset then slavery represented a betrayal of America's founding ideals. Civil War and the abolition of slavery could not just simply dispel racism from American life. The now highly polarised American party system evolved in a context of how debates about how human rights and dignity were to be understood and put into practice. The book ends somewhere around Trump's mid-term. The now President Biden has a walk on part as a hardbitten senator.
Lepore also charts how American newspapers, opinion polls, broadcasting and social media have evolved. In her view, the mass media has grown by firing politics to become evermore combative and partisan. The result has been a compromised US political culture resting on parties shouting the opposition down, rather than on working towards reaching an understanding of a common good.
This book helps us understand the persistence of racial conflict, white supremacy and injustice in the USA up to the present day. It offers an historically informed perspective, directly linking the nation's founding fathers with twentieth century Civil Rights campaigns and with today's Black Lives Matter movement.
It helps readers, especially those like me from the other side of the pond, understand how America's constitution remains a work in progress. The founding truths of the USA - equality, freedom and democracy - will always be fought over.
Whilst this is a lengthy detailed book, it is well worth persisting. I certainly feel reading Lepore's work has helped me to a greater appreciation of the lifeblood and pulse of American culture and politics.
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tornado
5.0 out of 5 stars Une véritable Odyssée extrêmement bien documentée.Reviewed in Canada on 12 January 2023
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Je ne peux que recommander ce gros livre d’histoire magnifiquement écrit pour qui veut dépasser les clichés sur l’histoire américaine. On ne peut plus penser la force et la vulnérabilité de cette république et sa démocratie après cette lecture.
Vous voulez approfondir votre connaissance des États-Unis aujourd’hui, le livre de Jill Lepore est une excellente entrée en matière.
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EAS
5.0 out of 5 stars The best single-volume history of the United StatesReviewed in the United States on 30 January 2026
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This was without a doubt the best history volume I have ever read. Lepore's writing style is engaging, making this book a "page-turner," even though the subject matter is very familiar. I couldn't put the book down. She presents the history of the US in such a way that I just wanted to keep reading. But it wasn't just her writing style--the content was equally impressive. No one can possible include every historical event in a single volume, but her choices are terrific, giving a comprehensive and fair summation of the history of the US. Simply put, this history explores the greatness of the nation based on the founding idea of "these truths" without ignoring the ways that many people opposed and denied the very concepts included in that extended phrase from the Declaration of Independence.
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Mario Sergio Lacerda
5.0 out of 5 stars ValiosoReviewed in Brazil on 3 August 2023
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Conteúdo histórico sensacional
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historybuff
4.0 out of 5 stars Lots of information wrapped into about 800 pages.Reviewed in the United States on 2 February 2019
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Yes, just finished and wanted to see what others wrote in review. Whew! I see Lepore's work is criticized (appropriately) on many accounts. Most of this book which I read through without notice and did find some statements that I thought might be unintentional oversight.
Often when finding a work about the "Great American Experiment" the author certainly will taint the reader with his/her frame of mind which will move me towards their (political, religious, social, etc.) position, because I have a respect for the writer. To have a writer explain what a 19th century speech is saying in words used differently than I am exposed to is helpful. So many of these books are not written alone, but with others to research, proofread and advise. I seem to want to take the references noted in the notes and read then as well. But, time is rare, so it may not become a reality.
Lapore has taken on an enormous and always interpretive (to the reader and his/her experiences) subject. Whenever the U.S. Constitution is up for discussion, it's sort of like the Bible, good luck. The History of the U. S. of America can easily fall into the ungrateful position. As I read it (as a possible history book) I thought how different this book is from the books I was taught mid 20th century. Wow, let's open the doors to the case of the black American, the races of all whom have for many reasons come to live and prosper in this country. She brings more to the point as a more liberally (that's how we seem to look at writers of this ilk) minded enlightened writer. I liked her attempt at consolidating such a long and rich history. It's not how much is left out of this commentary, but it's how she has picked at what are "important" issues that make the reader see who Americans are, and why we think and do act as we do.
Sure, we can read other American history historians books and wonder why the important issues in those books are not explained at length in her book about say, the Gold Rush, or the triumphant antebellum orators of AW, JC and HC. But, really no one should expect the details of such exciting and nation forming issues to be put into one volume.
If you are just a reader who enjoys American History, this is delightful, and with care think about some of the facts, If you're reading this (I naturally assume you have red much of detailed American, issues and biographies, etc.) you will see some of the gaffs, but just correct them and go on.
Is it the editor's responsibility to find and make corrections, or a league of researchers? Lepore is evidently a very busy academic; teaching, journalistic writings, essays and offers, commentary, books, etc. I'm giving her a break and will say I enjoyed this offer.
I do however, give much credit for other reviewers much more poised, evidently from their expertise than I, and hope you check out the details of her (minor) faults.
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4.0 out of 5 stars Want to understand why the USA is what it is today?Reviewed in Canada on 14 November 2020
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This book gives an interesting review of how the Unmuted States constitution developed, why it contains many of the provisions that are controversial to this day, and how the USA, in compromising to put the nation back together the way it did, shaped the current issues it faces today. Black Lives, Electoral College, divided communities, etc. It seems authoritative and complete.
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George Thomas
4.0 out of 5 stars Mama triedReviewed in India on 15 August 2020
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Written with verve, vivacity and wit this is an ambitious work. It is not a dispassionate recital of events. The author has opinions and is not shy to state them, sometimes with vehemence and sometimes gently. What then is there to dislike? The main, almost shocking void, is the near absence of Native Americans from the narrative. Except for a few cursory references, it seems as if they had and have no agency. Surely the history of one of the major genocides documented in history, and the brave struggle to prevent it, deserves at least fifty pages if not a hundred in a book of nearly 800 pages of narrative.
The story of slavery and African Americans still sounds like a white person's narrative - the horrors are chronicled, but to me, a native of a country once colonized (India), it still reads like mostly a white view. In the words of the Grateful Dead, Mama tried. Did she succeed? I think not.
Part four (The Machine) 1946 to 2016 seems to have knocked the author off balance. This is history at least parts of which many readers have lived through and may have opinions on. The author seems to have a visceral dislike for Bill Clinton and he is heaped with opprobrium.
The author has a mostly negative view of the internet and social media. For us in the Third World, the internet has been truly a positive force. As a student, I remember struggling to find references because our libraries were (and still are) poorly funded. In the last decade or so, people like me can access virtually any document thanks to the internet.
Is a dystopian view of the future justified? The times they are achanging. As Bob Dylan said,
Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin ....
Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin'
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'
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buncl
4.0 out of 5 stars ein StandardwerkReviewed in Germany on 14 May 2025
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... um zu verstehen, wie die Vereinigten Staaten zu dem wurden, was heute Gesprächsthema Nr. 1 ist: zwar merklich mit linksliberaler Brille verfasst, dennoch eine bereichernde Lektüre, im Kontrast zum täglichen Gegackere der deutschen Medien. Deren Konsumenten hätten bekanntlich zu 90% Frau Harris gewählt, was meinen Kulturpessimismus weiter befördert.
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4.0 out of 5 stars Answers all those questions about the modern USAReviewed in the United Kingdom on 30 June 2020
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Lepore ends her narrative with the election in 2016 (and who can blame her?) For those of us around the world who want to understand how the US ended up where it did at this time, this is a scholarly, lucid and highly informative account. This is not a quick or easy book, but is well worth the time and effort that you will need to invest.
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eduardo almeida
4.0 out of 5 stars Um Estados Unidos DiferenteReviewed in Brazil on 17 June 2021
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Uma abordagem diferente da história dos Estados Unidos. Mostrando muito daquilo que outros livros omitem
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gabriele schmitt-meyer
5.0 out of 5 stars TOLLES P-L VERHÄLTNIS!Reviewed in Germany on 27 February 2020
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SEHR GUT
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Himanshu Manchanda
2.0 out of 5 stars Poor quality productReviewed in India on 7 November 2023
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The book has a big stain at the bottom as shown in the image. The pages have started turning out to be yellow indicating this is likely an old book. Disappointing overall given the high price of the book.
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blue
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant!!!!Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 27 July 2025
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Guaranteed to get the MAGA crowd frothing at the mouth - well the few who know how to read that is. A brilliant gripping political history, fluent and to the point. The more you read the stranger the USA becomes.
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Sigmund Travis
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book but you will have read more than the percentage shows.Reviewed in Canada on 27 December 2025
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These Truths is an extraordinary book. However, this review is for Amazon Kindle Division. The book is accurate in its Kindle edition. The pages are accurate and coincide with the print edition. However, the percent read is inaccurate. When you reach the end of the book, the percentage read shows 67%.
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Mark Twain
5.0 out of 5 stars A superb history book that reads like a novel you wish would never endReviewed in the United States on 12 October 2018
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Jill Lepore is a national treasure, a writer-with-attitude who rose from being a secretary at Harvard to chair of its History Department. She is an obsessive researcher, unearthing bits that keep the narrative moving and often funny. She writes for the New Yorker and her obsession with excellent prose and factual detail shows. (In a book this length, there will be exceptions, and on page 674 she commits a howler: "By 2000, the number of foreign-born Americans had risen to 28 million, constituting 29 percent of the U.S. population." This implies a US population of <100 million at a time we know the US had 280+m residents. She meant about ten percent).
Lepore does not mask her politics. She writes with assurance about the tortured history of American racism and sexism without victimizing or sanctifying African Americans or women. Her final chapters reflect a merciless critic of modern NRA/pro-choice religious conservatism and a pen equally dismissive identity liberalism. She is utterly unsparing of her postmodern structuralist colleagues in the academy. She portrays Bill Clintons as a spoiled buffoon and Hillary as smart but politically clueless.
Lepore weaves several themes throughout. America was born to struggle with "These Truths" as described in the opening sentence of the Declaration of Independence. What does "created equal" mean? What are our "inalienable rights"? How can we form a government that reflects "the consent of the governed"? These Truths are, at best, a work in progress -- but the work is noble and worthwhile. She writes as well of the history of single-volume histories of the United States -- acknowledging the shoulders on which her massive contribution stands. She tells the stories of immigrants, native peoples, slaves, and women not only from their perspective but from the perspective of those privileged to rule.
Order this book like you would order a fine meal. Savor each bite and treasure each course not only for the freshness but for the spices and the display. Because when your meal ends some 700 pages later, you will discover that you are not full. If you are like me, you will beg for more.
Final point: I read this in hardback but ordered the Kindle version to enable searches, bookmarks, and notes. I urge Amazon to give a Kindle copy of this or any other book to readers who purchase hardback copies. These are complementary, not rival goods. I am not getting more content, nor is a publisher incurring more cost, when I get the book in both analog and digital formats. There is a place for both, but no reason to charge us twice.
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Antonio Brito
5.0 out of 5 stars A história lida ao revesReviewed in Brazil on 28 December 2020
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Sem usar os clichés comuns mostra o papel importante da escravidão e da mulher na constituição de uma grande nação. Haja fôlego para ler tantas páginas, porém vale o esforço.
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Eric Wolff
3.0 out of 5 stars AnstrengendReviewed in Germany on 24 April 2021
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Für mich persönlich anstrengend zu lesen, da ständig neue Namen / Organisationen etc. genannt werden. Selbstverständlich lebt Geschichte vor allem von den Personen, aber gefühlt auf jeder Seite (tlw. mehrere) neue Personen etc. "eingeführt" zu bekommen, ist zumindest für einen Laien wie mich sehr ermüdend ... Ich war auf der Suche nach einem allgemeinen, einführenden Überblick über die US-amerikanische Geschichte, und da schießt dieses Werk vielfach über das Ziel hinaus. Ich hätte mir gewünscht, dass der Fokus stärker das große Ganze in den Blick nimmt und historisch bedeutsame Ereignisse detaillierter schildert (z.B. finde ich die Ausführungen zu Korea, Vietnam etc. sehr oberflächlich - was aber häufig für meinen Eindruck damit zusammenhängt, dass die Eckdaten z.B. solcher wie der genannten außenpolitischen Konflikte beim Leser vorausgesetzt werden).
Was nicht heißen soll, dass das Werk für Leser mit profunden Vorkenntnissen in amerikanischer Geschichte nicht durchaus gut sein mag.
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Sara Stotzer
5.0 out of 5 stars A Brilliant American History BookReviewed in the United Kingdom on 24 June 2025
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This is my favorite American History Book ever.
Jill Lepore, has obviously researched extensively and writes beautifully, with truthful, clear perspective.
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ASB
1.0 out of 5 stars Book sent in terrible conditionReviewed in India on 27 April 2021
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The book has completely opened up after spending 2K on it
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Michael A
5.0 out of 5 stars A good choice!Reviewed in Canada on 26 January 2020
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In this era of misinformation and outright lies in service to political agendas, it is refreshing to read a history that seems credible and honest. Good read, delivered by service oriented book supplier
I would read this author and use Wordery again! Thanks, guys!
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daveyd
5.0 out of 5 stars Where have all the flowers gone?Reviewed in the United States on 31 October 2018
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On final page 791 under Acknowledgments the author writes "It is a truism that every book takes a life to write".
These Truths is a 789 page tome of scholarly researched and presented manuscript with countless historical incidents.
Early pages tell of the dangers pilgrims confronted in their sixty six day journey of daily uncertainties, questing toward the dreams envisioned at journey's end. The ship was Mayflower; it leaked, a wind was so fierce that a beam split, and a mast bowed. We know they survived and prevailed but, as subsequent pages reveal, countless challenges to history makers never end.
European ships destined for New World opportunities brought along cargoes of unseen diseases including smallpox, measles, bubonic plague, malaria, typhoid, diptheria, dysentery, yellow fever... People of the New World died by numbers in the tens of millions.
The origins and evils of slavery are iterated in many pages and chapters throughout much of the book's first half. Haiti in the eighteenth century was the largest and richest colony in the Caribbean with 452,000 slaves engaged in sugar and coffee production.
George and Martha Washington housed more that 300 slaves at Mr. Vernon. In December, 1799 George died but left a will that freed all slaves under his personal ownership. Many remained under Martha's continuing personal ownership as before George's death.
Many readers may find pages 242-244 perhaps the book's most interesting and pertinent to relations today between Mexico and the U.S.
Referred to as the imperial president by some Americans, James K. Polk lusted after the U.S. acquisition of land masses that now include Oregon, Idaho, Washington, Montana and Wyoming that were in the 1840s, all parts of Mexico. In a defiant demand to Congress, by a narrow margin, Polk was granted permission to wage war wherein under U.S. military superiority a treaty resulted in The addition of one million square miles of Mexico to the U.S., creating a 64 percent increase in Territory. Today's Mexicans know.
The Civil War: 2.1 million Northerners battled 880,000 Southerners in 200 plus conflicts. Seven hundred fifty thousand died, more from disease than from wounds. Five thousand fallen horses and more that 20,000 men from each side punctuated the turning point in the war on July 1 1863 at Gettysburg.
January 1, 1863 was Emancipation Day. Slavery had prevailed for centuries, cut down children; crushed mothers, poisoned a people and nation, free for millions of slaves now to …? They traveled hundreds of miles on foot, on horseback, by stage and by train, searching….
The political and economic power of railroads became more visible and manifest during the 1800's when Congress promoted the growth of corporate interests and a national transportation infrastructure. This prosperity was not shared by farmers and wage workers. Through foreclosures bankers acquired 90 percent of farmland and 1 percent of Americans controlled half of the nation's wealth. This latter dynamic of inequality remains a contemporary force to this day.
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Jonathan D.
5.0 out of 5 stars Both heavy and stirringReviewed in the United Kingdom on 8 February 2021
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This book promises to tell the story of U.S. politics from the first settlers to the present day. But it does so much more.
My knowledge of politics in general, U.S. history, human rights and media, has at least doubled thanks to this exceptional and mighty piece of work.
But there's more. Questions of philosophy I already asked were deepened and crystallised. Questions I hadn't thought of before were seeded in me and regularly tended.
This book is literally mind-expanding.
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Jack Thompson
5.0 out of 5 stars Jill lepore rocks itReviewed in Canada on 2 November 2023
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Very accurate telling if a history many have not heard before
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An actual buyer
5.0 out of 5 stars Eye opening and very comprehensive!Reviewed in the United States on 21 March 2026
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This book is perfect for those who want to capture the big picture of American history, sentiment and the main forces and actors behind American politics. If you wonder why we are so polarized and why lasting change is so hard to achieve this book seems to be a great start.
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uwe.o.petersen
2.0 out of 5 stars A History of the United StatesReviewed in Germany on 15 February 2022
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Aus einer sehr linken, fast kommunistischen Sicht geschrieben.
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Andrew Desmond
5.0 out of 5 stars America for Good and IllReviewed in the United States on 2 August 2019
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I thoroughly enjoyed Jill Lepore’s “These Truths”. In one volume, Lepore has encapsulated the European history of the United States. Yet despite having 932 pages including footnotes, Lepore’s style is such that the book is a very easy read. If only more historians could make reading such a comparatively effortless task.
“These Truths” is directed at the general reader. It presupposes no special prior knowledge of American history. In addition, Lepore is able to describe America in a very objective manner. She can see that the country has emerged from a handful of small colonies to become the world’s pre-eminent superpower. But she is also able to see the flaws of slavery, which were a dreadful stain upon the emerging republic. Indeed, the residual after effects of this truly horrible policy are still washing through the system today.
Along the way, Lepore provides some fascinating snippets of information. Two that struck me were:
1. The population of the Americas at the time of Columbus exceeded that of Europe.
2. The population of Hispaniola when Columbus arrived was about three million. Fifty years later had seen the population collapse to a mere five hundred.
I was also taken by Lepore’s description at the end of the book of the American experiment in general:
“A nation born in revolution will forever struggle against chaos. A nation founded on universal rights will wrestle against the forces of particularism. A nation that toppled a hierarchy of birth only to erect a hierarchy of wealth will never know tranquillity. A nation of immigrants cannot close its borders. And a nation born in contradiction, liberty in a land of slavery, sovereignty in a land of conquest, will fight, forever, over the meaning of its history.”
America has been and is a remarkable country that I have had the privilege to visit on numerous occasions. No book in recent times has succeeded as much as “These Truths” in explaining its history.
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Sam Theodore
5.0 out of 5 stars A must readReviewed in the United Kingdom on 12 November 2020
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I did not finish yet but I have the feeling this book should be read by as many people as possible. A different angle on history, one that was incredibly glossed over in the past. The author does not shatter the American myth, but she enriches it. No longer black and white but a wide range of grey.
Highly recommended.
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Sherry Cooper
5.0 out of 5 stars OutstandingReviewed in Canada on 5 March 2021
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A masterpiece--is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand why America is in the current state of division, hatred, and violence.
I wish I believed that everyone would read this.
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Dr. S
5.0 out of 5 stars A must readReviewed in Canada on 3 November 2020
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Extremely well-written and engaging, and a new and important perspective on events.
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mark l wilder
5.0 out of 5 stars perspectiveReviewed in the United States on 6 March 2026
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I for one ( a 75 year old man) am shocked at the direction our country has taken. I kept asking myself "why" when I should have asked myself, "what". What is it about the United States that has allowed the current situation. History is a potent educator. Jill Lepore informs the reader on the dynamics inherent in our beginnings that keep us in cyclical turmoil.
Every American needs to read this book.
Mark Wilder
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Sharris
5.0 out of 5 stars An intelligent and informative readReviewed in the United Kingdom on 3 March 2021
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Makes connections between the divisive politics of America today and the origins of the flawed ideals which lead to the Constitution. An excellent lesson in the evolution of ideas not only in America but in global politics.
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Benn Pamphleteer
4.0 out of 5 stars Well, almost.Reviewed in the United States on 30 May 2026
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This is a long and challenging book, and deserving of attention. Continue, even over the places where the author’s own prejudices and favors challenge her ability to find the essence of what she observes in the U.S. history. What she does reveal is often ugly; keep your own eyes and perceptions open to what we can learn from it.
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pTsd44
3.0 out of 5 stars After the rave reviews, a disappointmentReviewed in the United States on 13 December 2018
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I agree with those who have said we very much need a book of this scope, aim, and ambition: a sweeping political history of the United States, intended also to serve as a kind of civics primer, its topics chosen with an eye to what seems most significant in light of our own rather desperate political situation. I also agree with the author's major interpretative decision: to make slavery, sexism, xenophobia, and ethnic/racial hostility an important part of the central narrative of our history. And I share what seem to be Ms. Lepore's moderately left-of-center political views.
Why then my strong sense of an opportunity missed, a worthwhile project botched? I'll try to list the problems in ascending order of importance.
As is perhaps inevitable when one person attempts something of this scope, there are many factual errors (for example, that in 2000 29% of the US population was foreign-born; that Roosevelt was accompanied to Yalta by "fighter jets," that Allan Bloom was "a literary critic," and so forth). Some of these are so strange that one can't possibly ascribe them to any genuine defects in the author's knowledge; they must be some kind of editing blunder or something going horribly wrong in the text's journey from word-processor to printed text (a single example: the astounding statement, on p.298 of the Kindle version, that Virginia just prior to the Emancipation Proclamation was "a border state not part of the Confederacy"; of course, at the time in question Virginia was hardly a "border state"; Richmond was the capital of the Confederacy)
No author of a work of this kind could reasonably be asked to give an account of the competing interpretations of any/every significant historical event; doing so would require not one but many 900 page volumes. But on some questions, there's an option that lies somewhere between doing this, and adopting/stating a controversial position as though it were a matter of established historical fact, or the majority or consensus view of reputable historians. Two examples of the author doing the latter, both having to do with the Supreme Court. It is true that there is no specific listing of a right of judicial review of Congressional legislation in the Constitution. But to present the Court's assertion of such a right in Marbury v. Madison as a pure and simple power grab (as Lepore does) ignores a great deal of evidence that one of the reasons judicial review was not stated explicitly in the Constitution was that so many people took it for granted. (There's also nothing in the Constitution that says explicitly that whites should rule blacks, or men rule women--but as the author herself repeatedly points out, almost nobody in the America of 1787 thought that things could possibly be otherwise) How else, after all, was the Constitution's claim to be "the supreme law of the land" to be effectuated and enforced? Should it have been left to another branch of the Federal Government, or to the states, or to some kind of negotiated agreement between any or all of these? The only feasible alternative--one which in my opinion should have been adopted by the Framers--would have been to require such Supreme Court decisions to be unanimous, given their extreme gravity, their profoundly anti-democratic character, and the allegedly clear guidance provided by the Constitution. But I digress.
To take another example, the author asserts a kind of interpretive equivalence between the Court finding (in Roe v. Wade) of a "right to privacy" in the Constitution as a basis for abortion rights, and its finding in the Heller decision of an individual "right to bear arms" independent of militia service. This reminds me of one of the hostile definitions of a "liberal": someone who believes that the Constitution contains a right to abortion, but not a right to bear arms. [To forestall any possible misguided outrage here, I support abortion rights and also very strict gun control laws. The problem is that the author treats both these rights as Constitutional hallucinations, inventions, or deliberate distortions. But that's much more clearly the case with the right to an abortion than the right to bear arms.] There are all too many other places where Prof. Lepore adopts a position on a controversial question without any indication, except now and then in a footnote reference, that there are serious evidence-based arguments for opposing or alternative points of view. As mentioned earlier, there has to be some area between entering into endless discussions of historical controversies, and presenting one side of a controversy as undisputed historical fact--especially when the issues involved are really important ones.
But the greatest problem with this book can be simply stated: whatever her many skills and virtues as a historian, Prof. Lepore just does not have the extremely rare combination of analytical and narrative gifts needed to pull off a project like this--perhaps no one does, or ever did, or ever will. The text for long stretches meanders from one topic, event, theme, period in time, or person to another without (often) any discernible rhyme or reason. In my opinion, any reader without a reasonably solid prior grasp of American History will find this book difficult to follow. The writing is flabby and pedestrian; when it strains to go beyond this, it all too often falls into mawkishness or melodrama. There are too many examples of these failed attempts to attain the status of literature or epigram to list here; reading the embarrassing and, frankly, cringe-inducing epilogue/peroration ought to be enough to convince anyone.
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==
책의 배경과 핵심 전제
이 책의 제목은 1776년 미국 독립선언서의 유명한 문구인 "우리는 다음의 진실을 자명한 것으로 받아들인다(We hold these truths to be self-evident)"에서 비롯되었다. 저자 질 르포어는 하버드대학교 역사학 교수이자 <뉴요커>의 기고가로서, 토머스 제퍼슨이 선언한 세 가지 기본 진실—정치적 평등, 자연권, 그리고 인민주권—이 과연 미국이라는 거대한 국가적 실험 속에서 온전히 입증되었는가를 묻는다. 알렉산더 해밀턴이 연방주의자 논집 제1편에서 던진 화두, 즉 "인류 사회가 사고와 선택을 통해 훌륭한 정부를 수립할 수 있는가, 아니면 우연과 무력에 의해 정치 질서가 결정될 운명인가"라는 질문이 전체 서사를 관통하는 축이다.
르포어는 콜럼버스의 신대륙 도착(1492년)부터 2016년 도널드 트럼프의 당선 직후까지를 다루며, 거대 담론에 묻히기 쉬운 미국사의 모순을 정면으로 해부한다. 그녀의 서술은 미국의 역사를 결코 일직선상의 진보나 일방적인 승리의 연대기로 보지 않는다. 오히려 자유를 부르짖는 순간에 노예제가 동시에 확장되고, 기술과 미디어가 발전하는 순간에 대중의 분열과 반지성주의가 깊어지는 필연적 긴장과 역설의 과정으로 포착한다.
내용 요약
저작은 크게 네 가지 시기적 구분(아이디어, 인민, 국가, 기계)으로 전개된다.
첫째, <아이디어(1492–1799)>에서는 식민지 시대부터 건국기까지를 다룬다.
- 영국령 아메리카가 영국의 폭정에 맞서 자유와 평등의 권리를 주장하는 동시에,
- 아메리카 원주민을 축출하고 대서양 노예무역을 통해 흑인들을 속박했던 치명적인 태생적 모순을 파헤친다.
- 제퍼슨의 펜 끝에서 탄생한 고결한 문장들은 흑인 노예의 피땀과 나란히 존재했다.
- 르포어는 노예 반란, 여성의 역할, 잊힌 인물들의 기록을 끌어올려 건국 신화의 단일성을 해체한다.
둘째, <인민(1800–1865)>에서는
- 잭슨 민주주의의 대중정치 발흥과 급진적 팽창, 그리고 끝내 피할 수 없었던 남북전쟁을 조명한다.
- 백인 남성 보통선거권의 확대는 역설적으로 인디언 이주법과 노예제 확대라는 폭력성을 수반했다.
- 프레더릭 더글러스와 에이브러햄 링컨의 논쟁과 행적을 축으로 삼아, '헌법이 노예제를 옹호하는 문서인가 아니면 파괴할 무기인가'를 둘러싼 지적·정치적 투쟁을 상세히 추적한다.
- 결국 미국은 유혈 참극을 치른 뒤에야 노예제를 공식 폐지하지만, 인종 갈등의 심연은 메워지지 않는다.
셋째, <국가(1866–1945)>는
- 재건 시대의 좌절, 도금시대의 자본 독점, 진보주의 개혁 운동, 그리고 두 차례의 세계대전과 뉴딜 정책을 망라한다.
- 헌법 수정 제14조와 제15조는 남부의 짐 크로 법에 의해 무력화되었고, 거대 기업의 권력은 개인의 시민권을 압도했다.
- 이 시기 미국은 경제적 불평등을 완화하기 위해 정부의 규제 권한을 강화하고, 국제무대에서 제국주의적 팽창을 시도하며 초강대국으로 자리 잡는다.
- 르포어는 언론의 상업화와 여론 형성 기술의 출현이 민주주의의 성격을 어떻게 변형시켰는지에 특히 주목한다.
넷째, <기계(1946–2016)>는
- 냉전, 민권운동, 보수주의의 재집권, 그리고 디지털 미디어 혁명을 다룬다.
- 20세기 후반은 시민권, 여성권, 성소수자 권리의 약진이라는 괄목할 성취를 이룬 시대였으나, 동시에 정치적 양극화가 극에 달한 시기였다.
- 컴퓨터 연산과 정치 컨설팅 회사의 등장, 24시간 케이블 뉴스 채널의 탄생, 그리고 인터넷과 소셜 미디어의 보급은 미국 사회를 공론장이 붕괴된 부족주의적 상태로 밀어 넣었다.
- 저자는 분열된 현실 속에서 치러진 2016년 대선으로 서술을 매듭짓는다.
심층 평론
<이러한 진실들>이 거둔 가장 눈부신 성취는 파편화된 현대 역사학계를 향해 '단권 종합사'라는 대담한 양식을 성공적으로 복원해냈다는 점이다. 지난 수십 년간 미국 역사학은 미시사, 정체성 역사학 등으로 잘게 쪼개져 국가적 차원의 거대 서사를 제시하지 못했다. 이는 보수주의 진영의 맹목적 애국주의 신화화나, 반대로 냉소적인 해체주의적 비관론에 대중 역사의 주도권을 내어주는 결과를 낳았다. 르포어는 900여 쪽에 달하는 방대한 분량을 유려하고 흡인력 있는 문체로 엮어내며, 비판적 시각을 견지하면서도 시민적 공론을 회복하기 위한 통일된 국가 서사를 설득력 있게 재구축했다.
또한 르포어의 시선은 '주변부의 역사'를 주류 정치사와 유기적으로 결합하는 탁월함을 보여준다. 기존의 통사가 대통령, 의회, 전쟁 위주로 흐르거나, 반대로 급진적 민중사가 제도 정치를 부차적인 것으로 치부했던 것과 달리, 이 책은 워싱턴과 제퍼슨의 논쟁 바로 곁에 프레더릭 더글러스, 필리스 휘틀리, 제인 애덤스, 메리 리스본 같은 여성과 유색인종 지식인들의 텍스트를 나란히 배치한다. 이를 통해 '진실'을 지키고 확장하려 분투했던 이들이야말로 권력자가 아니라 소외되었던 주체들이었음을 명징하게 드러낸다.
특히 돋보이는 저자만의 독창적 통찰은 '미디어와 정보 기술의 변천이 어떻게 헌정 민주주의를 왜곡했는가'에 대한 분석이다. 활자 인쇄술과 팸플릿 문화가 초기 공화국의 토대를 닦았다면, 20세기의 라디오, TV 여론조사, 그리고 실리콘밸리의 알고리즘과 빅데이터는 유권자의 이성적 숙의를 감정적 선동과 분열로 대체해버렸다. 정치 컨설팅 기업 '시뮤매틱스(Simulmatics)'에 대한 르포어의 선구적 연구가 이 책 후반부에 녹아들면서, 현대 민주주의의 위기가 단순한 정당 간 대립이 아니라 정보 생태계의 기술적 타락에서 기인했다는 서늘한 진단을 던진다.
반면 이 책에도 일정한 한계는 존재한다. 철저히 '말, 글, 미디어, 헌정 사상'을 중심으로 전개되다 보니, 물질적·구조적 토대라 할 수 있는 경제사, 산업 구조의 기술적 변화, 계급 갈등의 물질적 조건에 대한 분석은 상대적으로 엷다. 또한 냉전 이후의 미국 대외 정책이나 글로벌 패권 국가로서 세계 체제에 미친 영향보다는 국내 정치적 분열에 논의가 집중되어 있어, 세계사적 맥락에서의 미국을 온전히 조망하기에는 다소의 아쉬움을 남긴다.
결론적으로 <이러한 진실들>은 신화화된 찬양도, 냉소적인 허무주의도 거부하는 성숙한 역사서다. 저자는 미국이 건국의 약속을 지키는 데 수없이 실패했음을 가감 없이 고발하면서도, 여전히 그 '자명한 진실'이라는 이상 자체가 부당한 권력을 심판하고 평등을 쟁취하는 가장 강력한 무기였음을 웅변한다. 폭풍 속을 표류하는 배처럼 위태로운 오늘날의 민주주의를 지키기 위해 우리는 어떤 역사를 기억해야 하는가라는 준엄한 물음을 던지는 역작이다.
세진님, 르포어가 다룬 건국기 노예제 모순이나 현대의 미디어 양극화 분석 중 더 깊이 살펴보고 싶으신 부분이 있으신가요?
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