[Lepore's] one-volume history is elegant, readable, sobering…The size of the project is liberating and constraining at once. A book like this is both very long and very short…Keeping everything contained between two covers risks compressing the historical sprawl into one of those dense slabs more suitable for gift-giving than reading—the print equivalent of a holiday fruitcake. But in Lepore's hands, the history gets some room to breathe. She begins in 1492, with Columbus's arrival, wending her way through the next five centuries…leavening some of the essential textbook material with stories that are lesser known…Which isn't to say These Truths is an update of A People's History of the United States, Howard Zinn's radically revisionist book from 1980. Yes, Lepore pays heed to Frederick Douglass and Cesar Chavez and the African-American lawyer and civil rights activist Pauli Murray, among others. But her book is less about a struggle between heroes and villains than it is about the country's often tortured approach to political equality and natural rights—truths that were supposed to be self-evident but have been treated as if they were anything but.
The New York Times - Jennifer Szalai
07/16/2018
"A history for the 21st century, far more inclusive than the standard histories of the past."
"Lepore has written the most honest accounting of our country’s history that I’ve ever read."
"Those devoted to an honest reckoning with America’s past have their work cut out for them. Lepore’s book is a good place to start."
"It's an audacious undertaking to write a readable history of America, and Jill Lepore is more than up to the task. But These Truths is also an astute exploration of the ways in which the country is living up to its potential, and where it is not."
"Jill Lepore is an extraordinarily gifted writer, and These Truths is nothing short of a masterpiece of American history. By engaging with our country's painful past (and present) in an intellectually honest way, she has created a book that truly does encapsulate the American story in all its pain and all its triumph."
"‘An old-fashioned civics book,’ Harvard historian and New Yorker contributor Jill Lepore calls it, a glint in her eye. This fat, ludicrously ambitious one-volume history is a lot more than that. In its spirit of inquiry, in its eager iconoclasms, These Truths enacts the founding ideals of the country it describes."
"This sweeping, sobering account of the American past is a story not of relentless progress but of conflict and contradiction, with crosscurrents of reason and faith, black and white, immigrant and native, industry and agriculture rippling through a narrative that is far from completion."
“100 Notable Books of 2018” Editors’ Choice
"Jill Lepore is that rare combination in modern life of intellect, originality, and style."
Times Literary Supplement - Amanda Foreman
"In this inspiring and enlightening book, Jill Lepore accomplishes the grand task of telling us what we need to know about our past in order to be good citizens today."
"This vivid history brings alive the contradictions and hypocrisies of the land of the free."
The Times - David Aaronovitch
"[These Truths ] captures the fullness of the past, where hope rises out of despair, renewal out of destruction, and forward momentum out of setbacks."
Chicago Tribune - Jack E. Davis
"In this time of disillusionment with American politics, Jill Lepore’s beautifully written book should be essential reading for everyone who cares about the country’s future. Her history of the United States reminds us of the dilemmas that have plagued the country and the institutional strengths that have allowed us to survive as a republic for over two centuries. At a minimum, her book should be required reading for every federal officeholder."
"No one has written with more passion and brilliance about how a flawed and combustible America kept itself tethered to the transcendent ideals on which it was founded."
"With this epic work of grand chronological sweep, brilliantly illuminating the idea of truth in the history of our republic, Lepore reaffirms her place as one of one of the truly great historians of our time."
"Without ignoring the horrors of conquest, slavery, or recurring prejudices, Lepore manages nonetheless to capture the epic quality of the American past."
"Who can write a comprehensive yet lucid history of the sprawling United States in a single volume? Only Jill Lepore has the verve, wit, range, and insights to pull off this daring and provocative book. Interweaving many lively biographies, These Truths illuminates the origins of the passions and causes, which still inspire and divide Americans in an age that needs all the truth we can find."
"[Lepore’s] one-volume history is elegant, readable, sobering; it extends a steadying hand when a breakneck news cycle lurches from one event to another, confounding minds and churning stomachs."
New York Times - Jennifer Szalai
"It isn’t until you start reading it that you realize how much we need a book like this one at this particular moment.… Brilliant."
"It is the story of a nation, multiracial at its founding, and those who sought to find ways to realize ‘these truths.’"
Guardian - John S. Gardner
"Gripping, moving, and beautifully written."
Boston Globe - Evan Thomas
"In her epic new work, Jill Lepore helps us learn from whence we came."
O, Oprah Magazine - Natalie Beach
"Astounding…[Lepore] has assembled evidence of an America that was better than some thought, worse than almost anyone imagined, and weirder than most serious history books ever convey."
Harvard Magazine - Casey N. Cep
"Sweeping and propulsive."
"Lepore’s brilliant book, These Truths , rings as clear as a church bell, the lucid, welcome yield of clear thinking and a capable, curious mind."
"Lepore knows that the ‘story of America’ is as plural and mutable as the nation itself, and the result is a work of prismatic richness, one that rewards not just reading but rereading. This will be an instant classic."
"In her epic new work, Jill Lepore helps us learn from whence we came."
"Monumental…a crucial work for presenting a fresh and clear-sighted narrative of the entire story…exciting and page-turningly fascinating, in one of those rare history books that can be read with pleasure for its sheer narrative energy."
New Statesman - Simon Winchester
"This sweeping, sobering account of the American past is a story not of relentless progress but of conflict and contradiction, with crosscurrents of reason and faith, black and white, immigrant and native, industry and agriculture rippling through a narrative that is far from completion."
New York Times Book Review (editors' choice)
★ 2018-05-28
