'Teetering on Revolution': The American Story
Jill Lepore, professor of American History at Harvard University, staff writer at The New Yorker, and the author of many books, including her latest, These Truths: A History of the United States (W. W. Norton & Company, 2018), talks about her new take on the full scope of U.S. history -- an exploration of how well American democracy has satisfied the three "self-evident" truths in the Declaration of Independence.
Prof Jill Lepore: "It is in fact a right to revolution that's inscribed in our founding documents."
— Brian Lehrer Show (@BrianLehrer) September 21, 2018
What did the founding fathers mean by "happiness"?
— Brian Lehrer Show (@BrianLehrer) September 21, 2018
Jill Lepore: Happiness wasn't exactly an emotional state in the 18th century--it was almost religious. It's not what we would think of as attending to personal needs or having the new iPhone. It's more about the commonweal. pic.twitter.com/dfQdXvc9ph
Jill Lepore pegs the 1930s as the first time "Fake News" was used: Joseph Goebbels used the radio to tell the German people what to think and sent out richly produced false news reports. Newspapers in England and US called it fake news.
— Brian Lehrer Show (@BrianLehrer) September 21, 2018
