The American Beast: Essays, 2012-2022
About this ebook
'A stunning mosaic of contemporary America' Fintan O'Toole
'Essential reading, with quick insights and bomblets of surprise' TLS
A panoptical vision of modern America, from the brilliant mind of Jill Lepore.
The 2010s marked a shift in America's trajectory, beginning with the run-up to Donald Trump's election, through to the chaos and confusion left in its wake. With the wit and verve that has made her the acclaimed national historian of a generation, Jill Lepore reflects on the consuming fissures of this era: culture wars and media corrosion; disruptive innovation and techno-utopianism; constitutional crises surrounding gun rights and a reckoning with a deep history of racial violence.
These essays make sense of American life in a moment of polarization, capturing the tumultuous relationship between the country's violent past and fractured present.
Praise for Jill Lepore:
'The pre-eminent historian of forgotten tales from America's past' David Runciman
'A person can't help but feel inspired by the riveting intelligence and joyful curiosity of Lepore' George Saunders
'Lepore writes history like a poet' Dan Snow
'Lepore is that rare combination in modern life of intellect, originality and style' Amanda Foreman
About the author
Jill Lepore is the David Woods Kemper '41 Professor of American History at Harvard University, where she teaches classes in evidence, historical methods, the humanities, and American political history. She is the author of The Name of War: King Philip's War and the Origins of American Identity (winner of the Bancroft Prize), New York Burning: Liberty, Slavery and Conspiracy in Eighteenth-Century Manhattan (a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize), The Secret History of Wonder Woman (winner of the American History Book Prize), If Then (longlisted for the National Book Award) and many other titles. She is a staff writer at the New Yorker, host of the podcast The Last Archive, and was the winner of the Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thought in 2021.
