I’m Jordan Taylor.
I love to learn and write about how people navigated the media environment of the eighteenth century.
In many ways, it was very different from ours. In other ways, it feels exactly the same.
That’s what I love to explore. I’m a historian of media and politics during the American Revolution.
First book
Fake news isn’t new. Neither are the political consequences of it.
Americans have been worried about entering a post-truth world for centuries.
My first book, Misinformation Nation, is about how false news from abroad shaped the politics of the American Revolution.
It’s available in hardcover and as an audiobook. You can, and probably should, order it here!
Next book
My next book, Democracy’s Dark Arts, is a study of how America’s founding generation thought about the challenge of sustaining truth in a representative government.
The book tells this story by investigating the lives of about a dozen individuals, from Samuel Adams to Abigail Adams, from Thomas Hutchinson to Thomas Jefferson (as well as other non-Adamses and non-Thomases).
Other Research
I’m fascinated by the publications that informed the American Revolution. While I have written much about their contents, I’ve completed several side quests to understand how they circulated, who read them, and how they were funded. You can read more about that here.
Details
I am the Digital Projects Editor for the Colonial Williamsburg Innovation Studios. This website documents my personal scholarship and research, rather than work for my employer.
You can follow me on Mastodon, Threads, and Bluesky. I am no longer actively on X / Twitter.
If I can help you in any way, or if you would like to know more about my work, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. I would love to hear from you!
Jordan E. Taylor 