Het beest Amerika

by Jill Lepore, Frank Lekens (translator), Rob Kuitenbrouwer (translator)

Messcherp portret van een verdeelde en stuurloze natie

Amerika is in het afgelopen decennium ingrijpender veranderd dan in de vijftig jaar daarvoor en staat voor een cruciale fase in zijn geschiedenis. In twintig briljante beschouwingen ontrafelt Jill Lepore de tumultueuze troebelingen waaraan Amerika ten prooi is – in de politiek en daarbuiten: het presidentschap van Donald Trump en de chaos die erop volgde, maar ook andere ontwikkelingen die de Amerikaanse samenleving ontwrichten. De cultuurstrijd, het verschil tussen arm en rijk, het afbrokkelen van de traditionele media, de macht van de Big Tech, de angst voor technologie en de constitutionele crisis rond gender, abortus, wapenbezit, rassenhaat en geweld.

Met een scherp oog en een meesterlijke pen geeft Lepore duiding aan een tijdperk van polarisatie en extremisme dat het Amerikaanse politieke landschap voorgoed heeft veranderd.

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, History

344 pages, Paperback

Published October 8, 2024

About the author

Jill Lepore is the David Woods Kemper ’41 Professor of American History, Harvard College Professor, and chair of Harvard's History and Literature Program. She is also a staff writer at The New Yorker.

Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Award for the best non-fiction book on race, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; The Name of War (Knopf, 1998), winner of the Bancroft Prize, the Ralph Waldo Emerson Prize, and the Berkshire Prize and a finalist for the J. Anthony Lukas Award.

A co-founder of the magazine Common-place, Lepore’s essays and reviews have also appeared in the New York Times, the Times Literary Supplement, American Scholar, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, The Daily Beast, the Journal of American History and American Quarterly. Her research has been funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Pew Foundation, the Gilder Lehrman Institute, the Charles Warren Center, and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation. She has served as a consultant for the National Park Service and currently serves on the boards of the National Portrait Gallery and the Society of American Historians.
Jill lives in Cambridge,Massachusetts.

Reviews

[Sayanth · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful mix of informative history and opinionated candor. Jill's stance on things is always clear in the essays, however her writing still compels you to consider a merit worthy opinion of your own

[David Peng · Rating 1 out of 5]

Firstly, bought this book thinking it would literally be about an American beast (maybe Big Foot, idk). This book ended up exceeding my expectations in the sense that it was even worse than I expected. It is self-indulgent and strings together loose ideas that are both out of context and incomplete. Some great ideas are introduced but fall short of any real insight beyond basic platitude. Overall, the book left me wanting more - specifically wanting to read a better book.

[Rod MacLeod · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stunning, frightening, scholarly but above all eminently readable. Hard to know quite what to make of it all but I’m so glad I read it

[Hazel P · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most of the articles in the book were previously published in "The Deadlines” so yes, it’s not a real new read 😉