BOOKS: These Truths: Jill Lepore

Oct. 1—Americans should read full histories of the nation on occasion.

We should seek American histories that follow the traditions and we should seek American histories that challenge our preconceived notions.

Jill Lepore does both with "These Truths: A History of the United States." A good book to revisit a few years after the first read.

She delves into a combined history of the expected white men who made the nation but also the Black people, minorities and women of all races who developed the country. She weaves their stories together in a rich American tapestry, through each chapter on each page.

The book's title reveals her history's overarching theme. "These Truths." For a country that has hewed to that phrase from the nation's inception — "We hold these truths to be self evident" as forged in the American scripture of the Declaration of Independence — America has always been searching for the truth and debating the meaning of those truths.

Though "Jesus Christ Superstar" plays no part in Lepore's book, the musical contains a lyric that helps explain her history: "But what is truth?/ Is truth a changing law?/ We both have truths./ Are mine the same as yours?"

It is important to note that both in the book's title and in the Declaration, "These Truths" is plural, not singular.

Thomas Jefferson was a proponent of liberty. True.

Thomas Jefferson owned slaves. True.

How do we reconcile one with the other when one undercuts the other but both are true about the same man. Same with the nation.

The Constitution is a construct for a free people. True.

The Constitution once considered a Southern slave three-fifths of a person. True.

The nation is built on such contrasting truths, according to Lepore's book. and she writes a moving epic of a nation that has always searched for its truths but has also been and is even more now separated by diverse and conflicting truths.

Like many American histories, Lepore does fall into the trap of providing more detail about events of more recent decades and years than past eras. Others will wonder why some people and events are not mentioned at all but that is the nature of a one-volume book on the history of a people and a nation.

But she does include a more diverse range of people than many other histories and creates a well-rounded representation of where the country has been and how we got here.

And that's the truth. Or at least one truth.