Jill Lepore discussed A Is for American: Letters and Other Characters in the Newly United States on Tuesday, February 26 at the Library of Congress as part of the Books & Beyond author series. The event was co-sponsored by the Library’s Manuscript Division and the American Antiquarian Society, located in Worcester, Massachusetts.

A Is for American is a fascinating, well-illustrated account of how language was used in the early American Republic to define national character and shape national boundaries. Jill Lepore is associate professor of history at Boston University and the author of The Name of War: King Philip’s War and the Origins of American Identity. She is co-founder and co-editor of Common-Place, an online history magazine (www.common-place.org) sponsored by the American Antiquarian society and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.