Theo Logos's Reviews > These Truths: A History of the United States

”We hold these truths to be self evident”...

”By 1926, a century and a half after the nation’s birth every word of its founding statement had been questioned. Who are we? What is True? What counts as evidence?”



Jill Lepore’s These Truths is a comprehensive history of America with a definite point of view. Of course, every history of America has a definite point of view — but we tend to use that phrase only when a history book varies from the view of history as we were originally taught. American History as it was taught to me in school in the 1970s glorified American exceptionalism and presented the mythic America of our national secular religion. It mostly ignored the perspective of the slave, minorities, women, immigrants, labor, or any American radicals, in favor of American triumphalism. That too, was a definite point of view. Lepore’s text is not that history.

What this history is, instead, is a warts and all examination of America’s history. The conflict that has been inherent from the very beginning is put back into the story, along with the point of view of the oppressed and disenfranchised. The title of the book, These Truths, is drawn from America’s founding document, and Lepore concentrated on examining the disagreements, debates, and battles that have raged over what these truth really mean, as well as the times that most Americans has simply ignored them. The fights over what America means and stand for is not new to our generation — it has been ongoing from the beginning, and Lepore’s history makes this evident.

What this book is not is a polemic. Polemics have their place as a corrective, but that isn’t what this author was doing. These Truth is not an angry reputation of America, but a clear and honest look at its history, an examination of what has been done and why, and the consequences that has had.

These Truths is massive (over 900 pages) but well written. It never bogs down or becomes unwieldy. It is an honest take on American history and what it means to all of us. In her afterwards, Lepore sums up what she has written in these words, that emphasize why reading this book is important:

”A nation born in revolution will forever struggle against chaos...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...A nation cannot choose its past. It can only choose its future.”