ipl-logo

Review Of Jill Lepore's The Whites Of Their Eyes

609 Words3 Pages

"We need not destroy the past. It is gone" a quote by American music theorist, writer, and philosopher John Cage. I believe history is a compelling subject for anyone to study. Harvard historian, and New Yorker staff writer, Jill Lepore's book "The Whites of Their Eyes: The Tea Party's Revolution and the Battle over American History" annotates the centuries-long story of America's founding. The story adduces and breaks down many pivotal events in the nation's history such as the Tea Party battle and the adoption of a "social-studies curriculum" by Texas' board of education. Throughout her book Lepore manages to exceptionally acknowledge the nation's struggle for independence within the eighteenth-century. The author also makes sure to briefly record when anti-socialists, conservatives, Christian democrats, classical liberals, and nationalists (political right) began dispelling their reactionary history around. The book does well in explicating how when no one could come to terms with a story pertaining to the nation's unruly foundnation, the political right made its own imagined past by depicting a time less troubled by strife and uncertainty. An "ideal" …show more content…

For example; the notion that teaches the United States was established as a Christian nation. Moreover, Lepore’s book also helps put the "Tea Party" sentiment into perspective as a historical act. In her book Lepore writes “...it had very little to do with anything that happened in the 1770s. But it did have a great deal to do with what happened in the 1970s...” (68). I intrepret this as the author explaining to us how the events of the past were not as significant as their later retellings made them out to

Show More
Related
591 Words | 3 Pages

This paper presents two essays written by Gordon Wood and Barbara Smith during the nineteenth century on the American Revolution. Both historians have different points of views and interpretation on what this revolution was really about. The purpose of these writings is to give a clear idea of the American Revolution to the readers and to make them closely think on how it affected people’s life and the society. On one hand, the historian wood declared that the revolution ended monarchy and led the society to democracy. He believed that this revolution was a good start to a new life for all Americans.

Read More
1397 Words | 6 Pages

Within these two lectures Professor John Dixon continues to enlighten us about the state of North America in the 1750’s and the series of events that went on afterwards. These two lectures are geared towards what happened before and after the Revolution. It had all started as a “growing crisis” within the colonies. The conflicts the colonists had been facing were slowly increasing and the relationship between the colonists and the British Parliament grew worse.

Read More
1167 Words | 5 Pages

The chapters of our textbook, America: A Narrative History, written by George Brown Tindall and David Emory Shi, takes us on a historical yet comparative journey of the road to war and what caused the American Revolution, an insight into the war itself, and a perception to what life was like in America after the war was over. The essays of the book, America Compared: American History in International Perspective, collected by Carl J. Guarneri gives us a global context and a comparison between the North and South Americas in the dividing issues of labor, slavery, taxes, politics, economy, liberty, and equality. Part One These chapters in our textbook Tindall describes; the road to the American Revolution, the road to the surrendering of the British, and the road to the American colonists receiving their independence and developing the government which the people of the United States will be governed by. The road to the American Revolution consisted of several events, which escalated to the war that began April 19, 1775, as the tensions between the American colonies and the British Government advanced towards breaking point.

Read More
944 Words | 4 Pages

Historian, Gordon S. Wood, takes the readers back to the the time of our founding fathers in Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different. His book enables us to critique our present political leaders based off the never forgotten achievements of the aristocrats who shaped an egalitarian society and politics. Wood figuratively paints eight portraits of self-made aristocrats who transformed a revolution into a prosperous country. He illuminates their lives with such interest and familiarity, one would think Wood was an observer among them. From this book, readers will understand how trials, wars, and critics all allowed men such as Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, and Thomas Paine to create the identity of America that we

Read More
1087 Words | 5 Pages

What if the cause of the American Revolution was so much deeper than you originally thought? What if, instead of just the result of a rebellion against a relentless government, it was something more complex, something uncontrollable? In his article “Rhetoric and Reality in the American Revolution”, author Gordon S. Wood provides us with the facts of how unique this American Revolution was compared to other Western revolutions. He shows us the different beliefs of the Idealists and Behaviorists and the opposite views of the neo-Whig historians versus the Whig historians. Wood helps us decipher the true motives of the revolution while surrounded by so much conflict.

Read More
1050 Words | 5 Pages

History does not only live on but it is a huge step that takes the nations towards a more advanced future. Speaking of the past, before America even gained its independence from Britain, colonists lived under British power. Powerless and unable to do anything, the colonists and Americans did not have a representative to represent them. Because of this, their powers were low along with their rights limited.

Read More
1470 Words | 6 Pages

Title The Revolutionary War period transcends far beyond a singular beginning. The American Revolution represents a change in mindset– a catalyst for political growth– and is symbolic of America's national identity. During the course of fighting a revolution against the world renowned empire Great Britain, American colonists gained new understandings and assumptions about the processes and organizations of government. From events such as the British imposition of the Stamp Act to the winter military campaigns in Valley Forge, there is a gradual transition in how American colonists view participation in government, and later democracy. The revolution presents historians with a timeline of how Americans consistently interact with varying degrees

Read More
1298 Words | 6 Pages

The author is illustrating that there were major changes during the revolutions in the Atlantic world from 1775-1825. Some of the changes are social and economic, enlightenment ideals of liberty and equality, and the costs of colonial warfare. In the year 1776, second Continental Congress issued the Declaration of Independence; and by 1783 Britain recognized the independence of the thirteen colonies. Furthermore, other events that occurred was in 1715-1774 which was the Reign of Louis XV in France, Life of Toussaint L’Ouverture in 1743-1803, and the Edmund Burke publishes Reflections on the Revolution in France in the year 1790. Five Major Themes  The social change; during the eighteenth-century, European society became legally divided into groups with special privileges.

Read More
344 Words | 2 Pages

After reading Chapter 5 in “The American Yawp”, it is clear that there were many social, economic, and political consequences of the American Revolution. This is evident because of the changes in societal beliefs, the end of mercantilism, and the increased participation in politics and governance. To begin with, the American Revolution changed the people’s societal beliefs. Prior to the Revolution, society was deferential and aristocratic.

Read More
1135 Words | 5 Pages

The American Revolution is arguably the turning point of American history as it resulted in somewhat of a significant, positive change in politics, economics, and society as a whole. However, from 1775 to 1800, the effects of the revolution on the American society were subtle as most principles glorified by revolutionists contradicted the examples set forth by colonial reality. Perhaps most alike to revolutionary beliefs was the American economy and how it participated in free trade or encouraged the independence of hard labor. Politically, the states did apply Enlightenment and republican ideas as promised, but more often than not, the benefits of such ideas were limited to rich, land-owning, protestant, white men. This glorification of

Read More
565 Words | 3 Pages

In History 1111, it teaches a broad introduction to the development of the United States. From the casualty losses to major expansion, the United States has developed World History with each major aspect of important, historical events. In this course I have learned not only important events, but how to analyze them and how they affect our world today. History is a great topic because as we acknowledge past events, it influences the future. Events really mold the culture and society that everyone lives in.

Read More
405 Words | 2 Pages

In the early 1980s Jack P. Greene and J. R. Pole reexamined a 1947 report conducted by Carl Bridenbaugh on early American history and culture. Greene and Pole commissioned historians who were educated in the time of the Bridenbaugh to write essays in their areas of focus, concentrating on aspects of social, political, and intellectual history. The essays written by these scholars were published in 1984 as Colonial British America. The collection of essays was partly intended to illustrate the missing and understudied elements Early America and argue the period is worthy of study on its own; not just as a period of time that ended in the American Revolution. On the topic of the four volume collection Greene and Pole state: “Several important

Read More
185 Words | 1 Pages

Moreover, the critic wants to highlight a distinction between the types of interpretations of the story which can be called, the “hermeneutic” approach and the “rhetorical reading.” On the one hand, the hermeneutic interpretation “is guaranteed by the reference of the words to something distinct from them, (…). The “something different” may be the life of the author, or historical facts, (…), or some external code of interpretation” (144). On the other hand, the rhetorical reading “starts with the words and stays with them” (144). It supposes that is generated by the words alone rather than anything external to which they refer.

Read More
1195 Words | 5 Pages

Due to the fact that this novel has been studied for decades, I also believe there is deeper meaning in which I may not even know yet. What I mean by this is that the first scholars who studied this book must have done it for a valid reason or else it wouldn’t be regarded today, and if the scholars reasoning is good enough, then surely we should follow the experts'

Read More
653 Words | 3 Pages

The Age of Revolution “It is time, at last, to speak the truth about the American Revolution, and the truth is this”. The American Revolution, the battle for independence American colonies undertook against Britain, gave birth to the nation and the world we know nowadays. It is an important and meaningful event that has a variety of names and denominations, such as The Great Rebellion, The War for Independence, The American Rebellion, The Colonial Uprising, The Great American Rebellion, and The Revolutionary War. This powerful, historical event was caused primarily by the Boston Tea Party. As a result, the Intolerable Acts, the First and Second Continental Congress were created.

Read More

More about Review Of Jill Lepore's The Whites Of Their Eyes

Related Topics

Open Document