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Recently, the United States has researched their sordid past. The NYT 1619 Project rejected the traditional US “start date” as 1776 - the year of the Declaration of Independence, enumerating human rights and centering liberty - in favour of 1619 - when the first African-Americans disembarked from a slave ship. These Truths begins in 1492, but hails from the 1619 school of thought.
Jill Lepore embraces storytelling. The prose flows as beautifully and as poetically as any work of fiction. We must measure our values against both the promises recalled and deeds recounted within. However, her history does not lose the h and the i to become just a story. Human life is recounted with astonishing accuracy - painful, agonizing accuracy, with regards to the intergenerational enslavement of African-Americans. Overly graphic depictions of human suffering can become a warped form of entertainment. Neither I nor the author are firsthand familiar with that suffering, and I cannot answer whether the text goes too far or far enough. Let this be your warning.
Decades and centuries past govern our present: where we live, what we believe, how much we take home from our jobs. Ignorance of the facts obstructs change. This book is valuable when trying to understand why the US is the way it is, because of prior historical omission of the central role of slavery. The human cost of being enslaved, from cradle to grave, is immense. So is the way slavery shaped economics and politics during its existence, and how it’s ruled the demographics of the USA after.
The absence of much Native American history through most of the book confused me. They lived then and live today, and any American story is their story. How many people know that the US had a Native American Vice-President? Who knows the name Tecumseh? Who is informed about the history of the “Indian Territory” (Oklahoma)? Who understands the reservations today? This book neglects to address those gaps.
The author also makes a couple of missteps near the end. The way they touched on topics like cancel culture showed they’d spent too much of their time arguing on Twitter. Some of the cheap shots taken simply do not belong in a book of history, because it is clear what the author is describing is not important enough to merit inclusion. Still, these only stood out in contrast to a book thick with content that was important, fascinating, or both.
Overall, this is a vivid, engaging book that doesn’t require much prior knowledge. You’ll get familiar with multitudes of facts and a menagerie of (oft-underappreciated) historical figures, like black abolitionist Frederick Douglass. There is no country like the USA - the first herald of modern democracy, founded on mass resettlement both forced and willing, a superpower unparalleled. If you’ve ever wanted to scratch the itch of getting a country that, like it or not, dominates the news and the way the world works, you won’t go wrong with These Truths.
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