Jill Lepore
Jill Lepore
Jill Leporeis an American historian. She is the David Woods Kemper ’41 Professor of American History at Harvard University. and a staff writer at The New Yorker, where she has contributed since 2005. She writes about American history, law, literature, and politics...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionHistorian
CountryUnited States of America
harbor nations offers olympics parade peace relief strife
The Olympics is an imperfect interregnum, the parade of nations a fantasy about a peace never won. It offers little relief from strife and no harbor from terror.
presidents
Few American presidents have been unhappier or lonelier in office than Woodrow Wilson.
broke good history matched means rich
Americans like to get rich fast. That this means we go broke fast, too, is something that we have become very good at forgetting. Our ignorance of history is matched only by our unfailing optimism; it's actually part of our optimism.
among people
Americans, among the marryingest people in the world, are also the divorcingest.
people types
Some people will always think they know how to make other people's marriages better, and, after a while, they'll get to cudgeling you or selling you something; the really entrepreneurial types will sell you the cudgel.
board bought game life mess playing quite remembered seemed sure
One day, I was playing 'The Game of Life,' the board game, with a mess of kids, and I wasn't quite sure how, but it seemed different than the game I remembered playing as a kid. So I bought an old game, from 1960, and it was different.
defense emergence exposure historical matter relationship secrecy stated
As a matter of historical analysis, the relationship between secrecy and privacy can be stated in an axiom: the defense of privacy follows, and never precedes, the emergence of new technologies for the exposure of secrets.
becoming came colonies debtors europeans paid passage three
As many as two out of every three Europeans who came to the colonies were debtors on arrival: they paid for their passage by becoming indentured servants.
leads sentiments stirring voters
A problem with a president who leads by stirring the moral sentiments of voters is that he has got to keep stirring them.
hall room school wax
When I was a kid, my father would go to our school in the summer to sweep, mop, and wax the floors, room by room, hall by hall, week after week.
bbc george loan obsessed orwell requests town
I was obsessed with George Orwell for years. I remember going to the town library and having to put in interlibrary loan requests to get the compilation of his BBC radio pieces. I had to get everything he ever wrote.
In 2010, one in four Americans got the news from Fox News.
history trial
Clarence Darrow, America's best-known trial lawyer, was also one of American history's most skilled orators.
car case clutch trunk tucked
In the trunk of her car, my mother used to keep a collapsible easel, a clutch of brushes, a little wooden case stocked with tubes of paint, and, tucked into the spare-tire well, one of my father's old, tobacco-stained shirts, for a smock.