Jill Lepore is a distinguished professor of American history and a staff writer for The New Yorker, renowned for her deep explorations into the nation's past. Her work delves into complex societal issues, skillfully weaving historical narratives with a unique perspective that illuminates the present. Lepore's writing examines how the past shapes our current reality and how historical accounts are continuously reshaped. She is celebrated for a style that balances scholarly rigor with literary grace, making her contributions accessible and compelling to a wide audience.
The book features 275 previously unseen photographs taken by Paul McCartney during the transformative period from late 1963 to early 1964, when The Beatles skyrocketed to international fame. Captured across six iconic cities—Liverpool, London, Paris, New York, Washington, D.C., and Miami—these images provide a unique glimpse into a pivotal moment in music history, showcasing the band's rise and the cultural impact they had during this explosive time.
In a sweeping one-volume account of American history, award-winning historian Jill Lepore presents a profound exploration of the nation's origins and divisions. Her work emphasizes the importance of truth—anchored in facts and evidence—as central to understanding America’s past. The American experiment is built on three foundational ideas: political equality, natural rights, and the sovereignty of the people, all of which require a fearless commitment to inquiry for self-governance to thrive. Beginning in 1492, Lepore examines whether the events of over five centuries have upheld or contradicted these truths. She intertwines the histories of American politics, law, journalism, and technology, spanning from colonial town meetings to modern Internet polls. Her narrative features a diverse array of figures, including prominent leaders and lesser-known activists, such as Frederick Douglass, William Jennings Bryan, Pauli Murray, and Phyllis Schlafly. Lepore asserts that Americans are descendants of both oppressors and the oppressed, and she reflects on the ongoing struggle over the meaning of the nation’s history. Engaging with this past is essential to citizenship, as it is an inheritance that cannot be ignored. "The past is an inheritance, a gift and a burden," she notes, urging readers to confront it.
TIME • 10 Best Books of August 2023A book to be read and kept for posterity, The Deadline is the art of the essay at its best. Few, if any, historians have brought such insight, wisdom, and empathy to public discourse as Jill Lepore. Arriving at The New Yorker in 2005, Lepore, with her panoptical range and razor-sharp style, brought a transporting freshness and a literary vivacity to everything from profiles of long-dead writers to urgent constitutional analysis to an unsparing scrutiny of the woeful affairs of the nation itself. The astonishing essays collected in The Deadline offer a prismatic portrait of Americans’ techno-utopianism, frantic fractiousness, and unprecedented―but armed―aimlessness. From lockdowns and race commissions to Bratz dolls and bicycles, to the losses that haunt Lepore’s life, these essays again and again cross what she calls the deadline , the “river of time that divides the quick from the dead.” Echoing Gore Vidal’s United States in its massive intellectual erudition, The Deadline , with its remarkable juxtaposition of the political and the personal, challenges the very nature of the essay―and of history―itself. 12 images
'A thoughtful and passionate defence of her vision of American patriotism' New York TimesFrom the acclaimed historian comes this urgent manifesto on the dilemma of nationalism and the erosion of liberalism in the twenty-first century.
The narrative spans significant moments in American history, starting with Columbus's 1492 voyage and culminating in Olaudah Equiano's 1789 autobiography. Jill Lepore uses engaging first-person accounts to illuminate the experiences and perspectives of individuals during this transformative period. The book captures the complexities of encounters between different cultures and highlights the impact of these early events on the formation of America, providing a vivid portrayal of the historical landscape.
Like every other superhero, Wonder Woman has a secret identity. Unlike every other superhero, she also has a secret history. Drawing from an astonishing trove of documents, including never-before-seen private papers, Harvard historian and New Yorkerstaff writer Jill Lepore reveals the fascinating family story that sparked the invention of the most popular female superhero of all time. Delving into the life of Wonder Woman's eccentric creator, psychologist William Moulton Marston, Lepore uncovers her feminist origins: from the warrior princesses of the Amazon, to suffragists including Emmeline Pankhurst, and the women Marston shared his life with - his wife and his mistress. The Secret History of Wonder Womanis at once a riveting work of pop-culture history, and a crucial insight into the struggle for women's rights in the twentieth century and the troubled place of feminism today.
A brilliant, revelatory account of the Cold War origins of the data-mad, algorithmic twenty-first century, from the acclaimed and internationally bestselling author.
A panoptical vision of modern America, from the brilliant mind of Jill Lepore.
Eine Geschichte der Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika
Die Amerikaner stammen von Eroberern und Eroberten, von Menschen die als Sklaven gehalten wurden, und von Menschen die Sklaven hielten, von der Union und von der Konföderation, von Protestanten und von den Juden, von Muslimen und von Katholiken, von Einwanderern und von Menschen, die dafür gekämpft haben, die Einwanderung zu beenden. In der amerikanischen Geschichte ist manchmal - wie in fast allen Nationalgeschichten - der Schurke des einen der Held des anderen. Aber dieses Argument bezieht sich auf die Fragen der Ideologie: Die Vereinigten Staaten sind auf Basis eines Grundbestands von Ideen und Vorstellungen gegründet worden, aber die Amerikaner sind inzwischen so gespalten, dass sie sich nicht mehr darin einig sind, wenn sie es denn jemals waren, welche Ideen und Vorstellungen das sind und waren."
