I have found my pandemic "read"--These Truths by Jill Lepore. It is a history of the United States from 1492 to 2016 in one very large volume--789 pages of text, plus another 200+ pages of notes, index, and acknowledgements. A good long read for these very quiet days and nights. What makes it special, though, is its focus. Lepore tells the American story in terms of how we have responded, over the past five centuries to “these truths”—to the promise of America—that the Founders stated in the Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness--that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed . . .
It is the story of the United States told by looking at the ongoing struggle for both equality and independence as we—as individuals and communities—pursue our unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That it has been a long struggle, Lepore makes clear by showing how the major events in our history are tied to our understanding of “these truths.” That it is a continuing struggle, our times make abundantly clear. As Andrew Sullivan noted in his New York Times review, it is also a story of contradictions:
This is not an account of relentless progress. It’s much subtler and darker than that. It reminds us of some simple facts so much in the foreground that we must revisit them: “Between 1500 and 1800, roughly two and a half million Europeans moved to the Americas; they carried 12 million Africans there by force; and as many as 50 million Native Americans died, chiefly of disease. … Taking possession of the Americas gave Europeans a surplus of land; it ended famine and led to four centuries of economic growth.” Nothing like this had ever happened in world history; and nothing like it is possible again. The land was instantly a refuge for religious dissenters, a new adventure in what we now understand as liberalism and a brutal exercise in slave labor and tyranny. It was a vast, exhilarating frontier and a giant, torturing gulag at the same time. Over the centuries, in Lepore’s insightful telling, it represented a giant leap in productivity for humankind: “Slavery was one kind of experiment, designed to save the cost of labor by turning human beings into machines. Another kind of experiment was the invention of machines powered by steam.” It was an experiment in the pursuit of happiness, but it was in effect the pursuit of previously unimaginable affluence.
In the process, Lepore creates a very different reading of American history than most of us got in school. Instead of focusing on battles and personalities, it focuses on how Americans defined “these truths” over the years and fought about their definitions. It is a very fresh look at our history and one that can open our eyes to the truths we are dealing with today.
The book has four parts: “The Idea” (1492-1799), “The People” (1800-1865), “The State” (1866-1945), and “The Machine” (1946-2016). I am about half-way through at this point and am learning a lot, getting a fresh perspective on our path to today.
I also just picked up Let Me Tell You What I Mean, a collection of early Joan Didion essays dating from 1968 to 2000—another unique insight into our culture and times.
Happy reading!
