From celebrated writer Jill Lepore, a literary and political history
of American origin stories
In The Story of America, Harvard historian and New Yorker staff
writer Jill Lepore investigates American origin stories-from John
Smith's account of the founding of Jamestown in 1607 to Barack Obama's
2009 inaugural address-to show how American democracy is bound up with
the history of print. Over the centuries, Americans have read and
written their way into a political culture of ink and type.
Part civics primer, part cultural history, The Story of America
excavates the origins of everything from the paper ballot and the
Constitution to the I.O.U. and the dictionary. Along the way it presents
fresh readings of Benjamin Franklin's Way to Wealth, Thomas Paine's
Common Sense, "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe, and "Paul Revere's Ride"
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, as well as histories of lesser-known
genres, including biographies of presidents, novels of immigrants, and
accounts of the Depression.
From past to present, Lepore argues, Americans have wrestled with the
idea of democracy by telling stories. In this thoughtful and provocative
book, Lepore offers at once a history of origin stories and a meditation
on storytelling itself.