Description
Our country started with promise and promises. Not all of those promises of equality, sovereignty and consent, were achieved or were even achievable.
In our core book, the Harvard historian Jill Lepore, in one volume, encapsulates the history of this country from the 1600s through 2016 and its aftermath. It articulates the confusion of facts and fiction that have always been with us, as well as the deep and contradictory currents of our society continually swirling. It is not just another history book, although it is a pleasure to read, and seems painfully honest and without excessive political bias.
The question which it raises is if America has, and ever could have lived up to its stated ideals or whether a nation conceived in revolution must always be chaotic; whether the simplistic view of democracy ever worked. It leads us through our history up to and through the 2016 election. Its answer is in many ways disturbing, as it shines a light on the American experiment. She says:
“The American experiment has not ended A nation born in revolution will forever struggle against chaos. A nation founded on universal rights will wrestle against the forces of particularism. A nation that toppled hierarchy of birth only to erect a hierarchy of wealth will never know tranquility. A nation of immigrants cannot 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.”
The story told contains much information that is new and fresh, and insights which need to be considered, even if rejected. Almost every page, while introducing us to new historical figures and clarifying others, is readily applicable to our present political, social and foreign policy situation. Its focus is pointing out the counterbalancing ideas and movements during this period, highlighting people and events including some that we either do not learn about or fail to understand in context.
It’s a big sweeping book. It covers the history of political thought, the fabric of American social life over the centuries, classic “great man” accounts of contingencies, surprises, decisions, ironies and character, and the vivid experiences of those previously marginalized: women, African-Americans, Native Americans, homosexuals. It encompasses interesting takes on democracy and technology, shifts in demographics, revolutions in economics and the very nature of modernity.
It includes the relationship of the races from the early days, the impact on secular polity of religious revivals, ongoing and pernicious response of the South to the Civil War, and its continuing struggle, the role of media, including the sometimes interchangeable connection of polling and advertising to political discourse, the important role of women and how moral issues were the key to their admission into politics and the franchise, our history of authoritarianism and attention to important and interesting people that appear in other histories only in footnotes.
This is a great and fresh way of viewing the entire panorama of our history through 2016 and its aftermath in one well written and thoughtful volume.
Jefferson said that the American experiment rests on three “self-evident” truths: political equality, natural rights and the sovereignty of the people. In history many had the idea that in American, there existed the Lockean “state of nature,” a place for new beginnings.
Weekly Topics
| SESSION | CHAPTER | PAGES | ||
| 1 | Intro, 1,2, | xi-55 | 1. The Nature of the Past (1-30). The people who made up our country. Divisions. | |
| 2. The Rulers and the Ruled (41-71) How Locke’s philosophy tracked the American experience fueled by a slave underclass. | ||||
| 2 | 3 | 55-108 | 3. Rebellion in America (55-71) Of Wars and Revolutions (72-108). Origins of revolution, Declaration, “resolution” of problem of slavery. | |
| 3 | 4 | 109-152 | 4. The Constitution of a Nation (109-152). As to slavery and sovereignty, America and Great Britain come out of Revolutionary War in opposite positions. | |
| 4 | 5 | 153-188 | 5. A Democracy of Numbers. (153-188) nature of rulers and role of citizens; math trumps philosophy. | |
| 5 | 6 | 189-231 | 6. The Soul and the Machine. (189-231). Economic bases of northern and southern societies; industrial revolution and human rights issues clash. | |
| 6 | 7 | 232-307 | 7. Of Ships and Shipwrecks. (232-271). Racial/ economic issues come to a head, exacerbated by American imperialism. Industrialism meets religion meets democracy. | |
| 7 | 8 | 272-307 | 8. The Face of Battle. (272-307) Can technology bind up the disintegrating union? Was slavery the cause of the rebellion? Can Efficiency solve our underlying problems? | |
| 8 | 9 | 312-360 | 9. Of Citizens, Persons and People [312-360]. Who won the war? Who won the peace? | |
| 9 | 10 | 361-420 | 10. Efficiency and the Masses. (361-420). Impact of growth of population and size of country on premises of founders. Progressivism and rebirth of modern conservatism | |
| 10 | 11 | 421-471 | 11. A Constitution of the Air. (421-471). Post WWI enthusiasm evaporates with Hoover; mass media amplify and distort; fake news is not a new phenomenon. | |
| 11 | 12 | 472-517 | 12. The Brutality of Modernity. (472-517) WWII and it’s not necessarily positive impact on the pre-War problems; | |
| 12 | 13 | 521-588 | 13. A World of Knowledge (521-588) Dawn of an age of affluence and prosperity. New form of economic conservatism vs; racism, poverty and prejudice; new ideolgies. | |
| 13 | 14 | 589-645 | 14. Rights and Wrongs (589- 645.) Cold war and its end decrease of liberalism, economic inequality and political polarization all begin to rise. | |
| 12 | 15 | 646-718 | 15. Battle Lines (646-718. Social issues become politically partisan; Cold War ends, domestic cold war, Reaganomics; NRA; " discovery" of 2d Amendment, Twin Towers. | |
| 13 | 16 | 719-785 | 16 America, Disrupted. Myth that 911 united the country, widening of divide and disdtrust ; populism; fake news; Deregulation of communications. |
Bibliography
These Truths, a History of the United States, Lepore, Jill, W.W. Norton, 2018
