|
Product Description
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.
Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought
- The Secret History of Wonder Woman
- Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin
- New York Burning: Liberty, Slavery, and Conspiracy in Eighteenth-Century Manhattan
- This America: The Case for the Nation
- These Truths: A History of the United States
- The Name of War: King Philip's War and the Origins of American Identity
- From Inquiry to Academic Writing: A Text and Reader
- The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution
- Un-Trumping America: A Plan to Make America a Democracy Again
- These Truths: A History of the United States
*If this is not the "The Story of America: Essays on Origins" product you were looking for, you can check the other results by clicking this link. Details were last updated on Dec 25, 2024 15:54 +08.