by Jill Lepore (Author)A New York Times Bestseller and a Washington Post Notable Book of the Year In the most ambitious one-volume American history in decades, award-winning historian Jill Lepore offers a magisterial account of the origins and rise of a divided nation "Lepore has written the most honest accounting of our country’s history that I’ve ever read." - Bill Gates "[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." - Jennifer Szalai, New York Times "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." - H. W. Brands, Washington Post 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 5 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. About the author JILL LEPORE is an American historian and journalist. She is the David Kemper ’41 Professor of American History at Harvard University and a staff writer at The New Yorker where she has contributed since 2005. She writes about American history, law, literature, and politics.. A two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, her many books include the international bestseller These Truths and If Then, which was longlisted for the National Book Award.