Answer these questions using the book Jill Lepore, These Truths: A History of the United States
Jill Lepore, These Truths: A History of the United States, chapters one and two:
Lepore ch 1
Based on your reading of the introduction, what do you think motivated Lepore to write this back?
Why do many American historians start our history in 1492? What does that say about their understanding of our identity?
What are some ways Europeans imagined America in the first century after they discovered it?
What are some ways this discovery changed Europe, Africa and the Americas?
How did some people dissent over cruel treatment of natives?
What ideas motivated early English explorers of America?
What did Locke mean by “In the beginning, all the world was America?”
Lepore ch 2
How does Lepore use the word “artifact?”
Why did the Virginia company have such a rough start?
What does Lepore mean by this sentence on page 38, “Another chapter opened in the American book of genesis: liberty and slavery became the American Abel and Cain.”
How did Edward Coke reinterpret the Magna Carta and how did his ideas impact American thinkers?
What were some of the ideological motivations of the Puritans?
What are some ways that Spanish and English settlers imagined race differently?
What were some early reasons for advocating a free press?
Why do you think Lepore juxtaposes Zenger’s trial to the New York Slave conspiracy of 1741?
What do you think was so appealing about Benjamin Lay
?2. What do you think influenced Benjamin Franklin’s changing views on slavery?
3. What factors do you find most compelling from this chapter in motivating the colonists to rebel?
4. Why didn’t English colonists in the Caribbean join the rebellion of colonists in North America?
5. What was the long-term effect of the Somerset case (described on page 88)
6. How does Lepore juxtapose Lord Dunmore’s offer of freedom to slaves to the shots fired at Lexington and Concord? Does this juxtaposition challenge or support narratives that celebrate American independence?
In the first few pages of this chapter, why did Adams believe in “restraining the will of the majority, Jefferson in submitting to it?” (p. 155)
How do you think the presidential election of 1802 compares to the election of 2020, or another recent election you might remember?
What were some ways the Supreme Court changed under Chief Justice John Marshall?
How did the Louisiana Purchase violate some of Jefferson’s core principles as a Republican? How did he use those same principles to justify the purchase?
How did the War of 1812 show the limits of both Republican and Federalist ideologies in the young United States?
Why did slave owners initially support the goals of the American Colonization Society?
Had you been a freed slave, would you have wanted to leave for Liberia in the early 1800’s?
How would you define Jacksonian Populism?
What do you think is meant by the title of this chapter, “A Democracy of Numbers?”
Lepore, ch 6
Why do you think a religious revival occurred in the United States during the 1820’s and 30’s?
What are some ways that new technologies affected societies in the period covered by this chapter?
What are some ways that the industrial revolution affected gender roles? What are some ways that women exercised power in this period as well?
Why were some people opposed to industrialization in general and machines in particular?
What were some characteristics of David Walker and his anti-slavery message?
What role did Nat Turner’s rebellion have on the pro and anti-slavery movements?
What motivated some people to immigrate in the period covered by this chapter?
What motivated the Indian Removal Act?
Why did the economy collapse in 1837?
What are some differences between Karl Marx and Henry David Thoreau?
7. In what other ways does Lepore use the institution of slavery to complicate histories celebrating the Americans’ victory in their war for independence?Lepore, chapter 4
Why do you think Madison felt like he was “living at the beginning of time,” while working on the Constitution? (pp. 110-111)
Why were some of the framers of the Constitution worried about democracy?
Based on Lepore and our discussion last week, what role do you think Shay’s Rebellion played in the push for a Constitution?
What were some key arguments that the framers faced at the Constitutional Convention?
What were some reasons that early Americans advocated for a separation of church and state?
Why were so many Americans afraid of the Haitian Revolution?
Why did Madison have so much faith in newspapers?
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