Jane Kamensky

Please join us February 22nd as we welcome Jane Kamensky and Jill Lepore and their new novel, "Blindspot".
JANE KAMENSKY is Chair of the Department of History at Brandeis University, where she has taught since 1993. She is the author, most recently, of The Exchange Artist: A Tale of High-Flying Speculation ... (more)and America’s First Banking Collapse (Viking, 2008). Her other major publications include Governing the Tongue: The Politics of Speech in Early New England (Oxford University Press, 1997); and The Colonial Mosaic: American Women, 1600-1760 (Oxford University Press, 1995).
JILL LEPORE is the David Woods Kemper ’41 Professor of American History at Harvard University and chair of Harvard’s History and Literature Program. She is also a staff writer at The New Yorker. Her most recent book, New York Burning: Liberty, Slavery and Conspiracy in Eighteenth-Century Manhattan (2005), was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History; winner of the New York City Book Prize and the Anisfield-Wolf Award; and an ALA Notable Book. She is also the author of A is for American: Letters and Other Characters in the Newly United States (2002); Encounters in the New World: A History in Documents (1999); and The Name of War: King Philip’s War and the Origins of American Identity (1998), winner of the Bancroft Prize, the Ralph Waldo Emerson Award, and the Berkshire Prize. Her essay about Noah Webster appears as the introduction to Websterisms: A Collection of Words and Definitions Set Forth by the Founding Father of American English (2008). She is currently writing a biography of Benjamin Franklin and his sister, Jane Mecom.

"A beautifully crafted debut historical novel that is at once a tender love story, a murder mystery, and a brilliant sociological and political portrait of a turbulent time."Library Journal (starred and editors pick) "Blindspot pulls of the dazzling feat of being as sexy as it is political, as accurate ... (more)as it is outrageous, and as unsentimental as it is moving. Not just a novel with an eighteenth-century setting, but as smart and funny as the best of eighteenth-century novels."Emma Donoghue author of Landing Jane Kamensky is a professor of American history and chair of the History Department at Brandeis University. She is the author of The Exchange Artist and Governing the Tongue, among other books. Her scholarship has been supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. She is currently writing a biography of the eighteenth-century American portrait painter Gilbert Stuart. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her husband and two sons. Jill Lepore is the David Woods Kemper ’41 Professor of American History at Harvard University, where she is the chair of the History and Literature Program. She is also a regular contributor to The New Yorker. Her books include The Name of War and A Is for American. Her most recent book, New York Burning, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her husband, three sons, and an extraordinarily large and formidable dog of entirely mysterious extraction.

Jane Kamensky, author of, The Exchange Artist: a Tale of High-flying Speculation and America’s First Banking Collapse, will give an author talk on Tuesday, January 27 at 7:30 pm. The talk will be followed by a book signing with books provided by New England Mobile Book Fair. In a study that details ... (more)the events leading up to the first banking collapse in this country, Kamensky reveals the story of how Andrew Dexter Jr., financial pioneer-turned-confidence man, financed his Exchange Coffee House in Boston by commandeering a string of banks stretching from Boston to Detroit, and then using them to issue millions of dollars in paper money, bills backed by little more than hope. When Dexter’s financial pyramid collapsed in the spring of 1809 he went bust and fled to Canada. The Exchange remained in Boston, a monument to Dexter’s ambition and his equally monumental failure. Much like the recent banker financed and directed sub prime mortgage backed bonds fiasco, the collapse of Dexter's speculative endeavor led to a panic and crash that severely impacted businesses across the country. Jane Kamensky, earned her Ph.D. in history from Yale University. She is Associate Professor of History at Brandeis University. Her scholarship has been supported by numerous grants from, among others, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. She serves as a consultant and on-camera expert for documentaries on PBS and The History Channel.

Get a new perspective on our Founding Fathers when historians Jane Kamensky and Jill Lepore present their exuberant new novel Blindspot. Written in the tradition of 18th-century novels like Moll Flanders, Blindspot is set on the eve of the American Revolution, in a world full of painting, passion, and ... (more)politics. Historically accurate yet outrageously witty, Blindspot follows two portrait painters who are determined to solve the murder of Samuel Bradstreet, a Boston revolutionary leader who died suddenly on the day they were scheduled to paint his likeness. Longtime friends Jane Kamensky and Jill Lepore have great fun with this book, which turns topsy-turvy everything readers ever learned about the Founding Fathers. Jane Kamensky is Professor of American History and chair of the History Department at Brandeis University, and is the author of The Exchange Artist. Jill Lepore is the David Woods Kemper ’41 Professor of American History at Harvard University, where she is chair of the History and Literature program. She is also a staff writer at The New Yorker, and her most recent book, New York Burning, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.