The Name of War

Jill Lepore's "The Name of War" delves into the brutal and foundational King Philip's War, a conflict erupting in 1675 New England that pitted colonists against Indigenous peoples, becoming, proportionally, the bloodiest in American history. Lepore masterfully unpacks the sheer savagery of the war, so profound that many at the time questioned whether its atrocities "deserved the name of a war." She argues that the war's true and lasting impact wasn't just the physical devastation, but the profound hardening of cultural boundaries between Anglos and Native Americans, which had previously been more fluid. More significantly, Lepore reveals how the narratives and interpretations of the war, penned largely by the victors, actively shaped and entrenched the enmity between these groups for centuries. By examining how we remember and recount past events, Lepore demonstrates that these historical tellings are as instrumental in shaping our present as the events themselves, offering a critical lens on one of America's most bitter conflicts.