These Truths

The single-volume national history most scholars think impossible, attempted anyway, and organized around the country's own stated ideals. Lepore asks whether the facts of American history have borne out the truths the founders called self-evident, and tells the whole story as the testing of that question. Ambitious, readable, and honest about the gap between the promise and the record. A good place to send anyone who wants the country's story whole, with the hard parts left in.

The Harvard historian and New Yorker writer who attempted the single-volume national history that most scholars now think impossible. These Truths organizes the whole American story around the country's own stated ideals, and asks whether the facts have borne them out. She writes across an enormous range, from the history of the voting machine to the woman who created Wonder Woman, always with an eye for the document that opens a door.