Over the weekend I finished the audio version of Jill Lepore’s monumental survey of American history, “These Truths,” published in 2018. At 960 pages or, in my case, 29 hours, the book is a major commitment, but it’s well worth it.
That said, one thing I learned was that I already knew a lot about American history, so much of “These Truths” was familiar to me. There’s nothing startlingly revisionistic about it, but it nevertheless works as a skillfully executed and gracefully written overview of the past 500 years, from Columbus to Trump. I especially appreciated her extensive treatment of Black and women’s history.