Jill Lepore on King Philip’s War [video 42min]

From a talk recorded in 1998 at New York's Morgan Library & Museum, Jill Lepore speaks about her 1999 book, The Name of War: King Philip's War and the Origins of American Identity (Knopf), and traces the meanings attached to this brutally destructive war. She examines early colonial accounts that depict King Philip's men as savages and interpret the war as a punishment from God, discusses how the narrative of the war was retold a century later to rouse anti-British sentiment during the Revolution, and finally describes how the story of King Philip was transformed yet again in the early 19th century to portray him as a proud ancestor and American patriot. Lepore is Professor of Early American History at Harvard University.