Jill Lepore's book, These Truths, a History of the United States, was probably the single most significant factor leading to the creation of this web site. If you have found this page you have likely been led to it by a search for some aspect of American History that I have included. If so, I strongly urge you to find and read a copy of this book. The New York Society for Ethical Culture has published a review that does a better job of it than I can.
Jill Lepore’s one volume history of the United States These Truths is no less than a monumental, indeed magisterial, achievement. Her title, taken from the Declaration of Independence, is suggestive of the solidity of natural law. But the nation that was based on natural law principles was never secure nor certain. America has been a continuous process of contestation, contradiction and conflict, strife and the struggle for self-definition.
In her epilogue, she summarizes the theme that courses through her 900 pages of American history:
“The American experiment has not ended. A nation born in revolution will forever struggle in 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 tranquility. A nation of immigrants can never 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.”