Lately Published
Misinformation Nation
Foreign News and the Politics of Truth in Revolutionary America
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2022
The Revolution is usually told as a story about ideas. This book argues it was also a story about bad information — about a generation that made its most consequential decisions on the basis of news that arrived weeks late, filtered through printers who could rarely verify any of it, and shaped by readers who fought false news at every turn.
Also at Bookshop.org and your library.
Awarded
2022
Research Society for American Periodicals Book Prize
Winner, 2021–22
2022
Journal of the American Revolution Book of the Year
Runner-up, 2022
Praised
Blurb
Sophia Rosenfeld, author of Democracy and Truth
“This is vital history for today.”
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Joseph M. Adelman, author of Revolutionary Networks
“We will be reckoning with Misinformation Nation for years to come.”
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Benjamin L. Carp, author of Defiance of the Patriots
“A thoughtful, compelling, and essential work of history.”
Reviewed
2024
“Timely, but its usefulness is not limited to the current moment.”
Carl Keyes, Eighteenth-Century Studies
2024
“An eye for detail and a flair for narrative.”
Helena Yoo Roth, Journal of the Early Republic
2024
“Blessedly lively prose — People do things! There’s even humor!”
Catherine O’Donnell, Journal of American History
2024
“Thought-provoking and engaging.”
Katlyn Marie Carter, Society for US Intellectual History
2023
“An engaging narrative with clear similarities to present struggles.”
Christopher Walton, H-Early America
2023
“Misinformation was so pervasive at the founding that it might well deserve an educational song.”
Emily Sneff, Contingent Magazine
2023
“Thorough yet accessible, detailed yet readable, comprehensive yet well-paced.”
Don Hagist, Journal of the American Revolution
2022
“Our democracy has not only survived misinformation but was practically built on it.”
Barbara Spindel, Christian Science Monitor
Contents
Intro
“Any thing but the age of Reason”
Ch. 1
Foreign Advices and False Friends: The Mediation Revolution in British America
Ch. 2
Taxation with Misrepresentation: Fears of Deception in the Anglo-American Imperial Crisis
Ch. 3
The Lying Gazettes: News from London in Revolutionary Politics
Ch. 4
An Ocean of News: Independence, War, and Atlantic Information Exchange
Ch. 5
The Genius of Information: Scripting an Age of Revolutions
Ch. 6
The American Constellation: Dreams of a Continental Revolution
Ch. 7
Bentalou’s Wager: The French Revolution and the Birth of American Partisanship
Ch. 8
Unmaking the Revolutionary Caribbean: Race, Commerce, and Communication in the Early Republic
Ch. 9
The Fruits of Revolution: False News and the Eclipse of the Federalists
Epilogue