Write an 8 page essay analysing an excerpt from Jill Lepore’s The Whites of Their Eyes: The Tea Party’s Revolution and the Battle
over American History (2010).
Your essay should accomplish the following tasks:
1) Briefly summarize the main argument.
2) Identify the argument or theory the text revises. That is, identify the major contention or idea your chosen text is in
conversation with.
3) Analyse why the text’s main argument is significant. That is, how does this claim shift how we read the object – be it American
conservatism or the uses of American history?
Your paper should follow the conventions of a scholarly essay. Thus while the above tasks are a scaffold for analysing the text,
your essay should not simply be an enumerated list answering these questions.
Remember that one tool for investigating the context of a theoretical argument is following up one or two of the sources the text
mentions.
The essay must be typed in 12-point font, double-spaced, with one inch margins. Title your paper, make sure to number the pages and
follow the MLA Guide for citation and format.