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Tara Westover

{{short description|American historian and writer (born 1986)}}

{{Infobox writer

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| name = Tara Westover{{cite web |title=Tara Westover |url=https://www.gatescambridge.org/biography/6162/ |website=Alumni Biography |publisher=Gates Cambridge |access-date=9 November 2022 |language=EN |date=25 June 2020}}

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| image = Tara Westover receives the National Humanities Medal on March 21, 2023, in the East Room of the White House - P20230321ES-0780 (cropped).jpg

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| caption = Tara Westover receiving the National Humanities Medal on March 21, 2023 at the White House

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| birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1986|09|27}}

| birth_place = Clifton, Idaho, United States

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  • Historian
  • writer

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| language = English

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| alma_mater = {{unbulleted list|Brigham Young University (BA)|University of Cambridge (MA, PhD)}}

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| notable_works = Educated

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| website = {{URL|tarawestover.com}}

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Tara Westover (born September 27, 1986){{cite news |last1=Whitworth |first1=Damian |title=Review: Educated by Tara Westover — from the Mormon boondocks to a Cambridge PhD |url=https://www.thetimes.com/culture/article/review-educated-by-tara-westover-from-the-mormon-boondocks-to-a-cambridge-phd-h6qtl2d6c |work=The Times |date=February 17, 2018}} is an American memoirist, essayist and historian. Her memoir Educated (2018) debuted at No. 1 on The New York Times bestseller list and was a finalist for a number of national awards, including the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, PEN America's Jean Stein Book Award, and two awards from the National Book Critics Circle Award. The New York Times ranked Educated as one of the 10 Best Books of 2018.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/29/books/review/best-books.html|title=The 10 Best Books of 2018|date=2018-12-05|work=The New York Times|access-date=2019-01-08|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}} Westover was chosen by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people of 2019.{{Cite magazine|url=https://time.com/collection/100-most-influential-people-2019/5567699/tara-westover/|title=Tara Westover: The 100 Most Influential People of 2019|magazine=TIME|language=en-us|access-date=2019-04-18}}

Early life and education

Westover was the youngest of seven children born in Clifton, Idaho (population 259) to Mormon survivalist parents. She has five older brothers and an older sister.{{Cite web|url=https://www.census.gov|title=U.S. Census website|publisher=United States Census Bureau|website=United States Census Bureau|language=en|access-date=2019-04-03}} Her parents were suspicious of doctors, hospitals, public schools, and the federal government. Westover was born at home, delivered by a midwife, and was never taken to a doctor or nurse.{{cite web |last1=Miller |first1=Dave |title=REBROADCAST: Tara Westover |url=https://www.opb.org/article/2022/04/11/rebroadcast-tara-westover/ |website=Think Out Loud |publisher=Oregon Public Broadcasting |access-date=9 November 2022 |language=en}} She was not registered for a birth certificate until she was nine years old. Their father resisted getting formal medical treatment for any of the family. Even when seriously injured, the children were treated only by their mother, who had studied herbalism and other methods of alternative healing.

All the siblings were loosely homeschooled by their mother. Westover has said an older brother taught her to read, and she studied the scriptures of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But she never attended a lecture, wrote an essay, or took an exam. There were few textbooks in their house.

As a teenager, Westover began to want to enter the larger world and attend college. She purchased textbooks and studied independently in order to score well on the ACT test. She gained admission to Brigham Young University and was awarded a scholarship, although she had no high school diploma. After a difficult first year, in which Westover struggled to adjust to academia and the wider society there, she became more successful and graduated with honors in 2008.

She then earned a Master's degree from the University of Cambridge at Trinity College{{cite magazine |author= |date=Summer 2018 |title=Tara Westover (2018) on her first book, Educated: A Memoir, the 'life of the mind', and the transformative power of education |url=https://issuu.com/trinityalumni/docs/trinity_the_fountain_spring_2018_we/18 |magazine=The Fountain |issue=25 |publisher=Trinity College, Cambridge |access-date=19 March 2018 |via=issuu}} as a Gates Cambridge Scholar, and was a visiting fellow at Harvard University in 2010. She returned to Trinity College, Cambridge, where she earned a doctorate in intellectual history in 2014. Her thesis is entitled "The Family, Morality and Social Science in Anglo-American Cooperative Thought, 1813–1890".{{Cite book|last=Westover|first=Tara|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RK4dvwEACAAJ|title=The Family, Morality and Social Science in Anglo-American Cooperative Thought, 1813-1890|date=2014|publisher=University of Cambridge|language=en}}{{cite web |last1=Westover |first1=Tara |title=The family, morality and social science in Anglo-American cooperative thought, 1813-1890 |url=https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.648651 |website=E-Theses Online Service |publisher=University of Cambridge |access-date=9 November 2022 |date=2014}}

In 2009, while a graduate student at Cambridge, Westover told her parents that for many years (since age 15), she had been physically and psychologically abused by an older brother. Her parents denied her account and suggested that Westover was under the influence of Satan. The family split over these events. Westover wrote about the estrangement, and her unusual path to and through university education in her 2018 memoir, Educated.

Career

Westover was a Fall 2019 A.M. Rosenthal Writer in Residence at the Shorenstein Center at Harvard Kennedy School. She was then selected as a Senior Research Fellow at the school for the spring of 2020.{{Cite web|url=https://shorensteincenter.org/spring-2020-shorenstein-fellows/|title=Spring 2020 Shorenstein Fellows|last=Shorenstein Center|website=shorensteincenter.org/|date=16 January 2020 |language=en|access-date=2020-02-01}}

Westover has written for The New York Times{{cite news |last1=Westover |first1=Tara |title=Opinion: I Am Not Proof of the American Dream |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/02/opinion/tara-westover-educated-student-debt.html |access-date=9 November 2022 |work=The New York Times |date=2 February 2022}} and BBC News.{{cite news |last1=Westover |first1=Tara |title=Rethink: Tara Westover says 'Build a world where we can be one people' |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-53078330 |access-date=9 November 2022 |work=BBC News |date=24 June 2020}}

Works

=''Educated: A Memoir''=

{{main|Educated (memoir)}}

In 2018, Penguin Random House published Westover's Educated: A Memoir, which tells the story of her struggle to reconcile her desire for education and autonomy with her family's rigid ideology and isolated life.{{Cite book|url=https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/550168/educated-by-tara-westover/9780399590504/|title=Educated by Tara Westover {{!}} PenguinRandomHouse.com}}{{cite news|url=https://www.newsday.com/entertainment/books/tara-westover-educated-review-1.16922262|title='Educated' review: Tara Westover's memoir of a childhood with religious extremists, and finding her own voice (book review)|last1=Cryer|first1=Dan|date=23 February 2018|access-date=24 February 2018|publisher=Newsday}}{{Cite news|url=https://www.thetimes.com/culture/books/article/book-review-educated-by-tara-westover-fztrfjknf|title=Book review: Educated by Tara Westover|last=Davies|first=Helen|newspaper=The Times |date=2018-02-04|access-date=2018-03-19|issn=0140-0460}}{{Cite web|url=http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20180130-ten-books-to-read-in-february|title=Ten books to read in February|last=Ciabattari|first=Jane|access-date=2018-03-19}}{{Cite news|url=https://ew.com/books/most-anticipated-books-2018|title=The 50 most anticipated books of 2018|date=2017-12-26|work=EW.com|access-date=2018-03-19}} The coming-of-age story was a No. 1 New York Times bestseller, and was positively reviewed by the New York Times,{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/01/books/review/tara-westover-educated.html|title=She Didn't Own a Birth Certificate or Go to School. Yet She Went On to Earn a Ph.D.|last=MacGillis|first=Alec|date=2018-03-01|work=The New York Times|access-date=2018-03-19|issn=0362-4331}}{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/02/books/review/westover-educated-best-seller.html|title=Spinning a Brutal Off-the-Grid Childhood into a Gripping Memoir|last=Jordan|first=Tina|date=2018-03-02|work=The New York Times|access-date=2018-03-19|issn=0362-4331}} The Atlantic Monthly,{{Cite web|last=Hulbert|first=Ann|date=2018-02-13|title='Educated' Is a Brutal, One-of-a-Kind Memoir|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/03/tara-westover-educated-a-memoir/550919/|access-date=2020-07-25|website=The Atlantic|language=en-US}} USA Today,{{Cite news|url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/books/2018/02/19/educated-inspiring-story-isolated-young-woman-determined-learn/334900002/|title=In 'Educated,' the inspiring story of an isolated young woman determined to learn|work=USA TODAY|access-date=2018-11-29}} Vogue,{{Cite news|url=https://www.vogue.com/article/tara-westover-memoir-educated-vogue-march-2018-issue|title=Tara Westover on Turning Her Off-the-Grid Life Into a Remarkable Memoir|work=Vogue|access-date=2018-11-29}}{{Cite news|url=https://www.vogue.com/article/tara-westover-educated-excerpt|title=Tara Westover's Educated Is Already Being Hailed as the "Next Hillbilly Elegy"|work=Vogue|access-date=2018-11-29}} and The Economist,{{cite news|url=https://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21737019-tara-westover-made-it-compound-idaho-harvard-riveting-memoir-brutal|title=A riveting memoir of a brutal upbringing (book review)|date=15 February 2018|access-date=24 February 2018|publisher=The Economist}} among others.

{{As of|2020|February|df=}}, Educated has spent two years in hardcover on the New York Times bestseller list{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/best-sellers/|title=Hardcover Nonfiction Books - Best Sellers - The New York Times|work=The New York Times |access-date=2018-11-29}} and has been translated into 45 languages.{{Cite web|title=Curtis Brown|url=https://www.curtisbrown.co.uk/client/tara-westover|access-date=2020-09-22|website=www.curtisbrown.co.uk}} The book was voted the No. 1 Library Reads pick by American librarians, and in August 2019, it had been checked out more frequently than any other book through all New York Public Library's 88 branches.{{Cite web|url=https://nypost.com/2019/10/26/here-are-new-yorkers-most-checked-out-library-books-by-borough/|title=Here are New Yorkers' most checked-out library books by borough|last=Licea|first=Melkorka|date=2019-10-26|website=New York Post|language=en|access-date=2020-02-22}} As of December 2020, Educated has sold more than 8 million copies.{{Cite book|url=https://barclayagency.com/speakers/tara-westover/|title=Barclay agency profile|website=barclayagency.com|language=EN|access-date=2020-12-31}}

Through their attorney, the family has disputed some elements of Westover's book, including her suggestion that her father may have bipolar disorder and that her mother may have suffered a brain injury that resulted in reduced motor skills.{{Cite news|url=https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/holocaust-remembrance-day/.premium.MAGAZINE-how-tara-westover-found-out-about-the-holocaust-and-became-educated-1.6221342|title=The Author Who Only Found Out About the Holocaust in College: How Tara Westover Became 'Educated'|last=Alexander|first=Neta|date=2018-07-03|work=Haaretz|access-date=2019-02-21|language=en|url-access=subscription}}{{cite web |title=Educated and the Intellectual History of Brain Trauma |url=https://s-usih.org/2019/04/educated-and-an-intellectual-history-of-brain-trauma/ |website=Society for US Intellectual History |date=9 April 2019 |access-date=9 November 2022}}

Awards and recognition

Westover's book earned her several awards, and other recognition.

Personal life

Westover lives in London.{{cite news |last1=Follis |first1=Don |title=On defying one's family to earn a Ph.D. from Cambridge |url=https://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/don-follis-on-defying-ones-family-to-earn-a-ph-d-from-cambridge/article_b421bb6c-cd50-5170-8a50-a076322b3adb.html |access-date=9 November 2022 |work=The News-Gazette |date=August 27, 2018 |location=Champaign, Illinois |language=en}}

References

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External links

{{Wikiquote}}

{{Commons category}}

  • {{official website|https://tarawestover.com/}}
  • [https://www.c-span.org/video/?441167-1/after-words-tara-westover Tara Westover], After Words, C-SPAN

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Category:21st-century American memoirists

Category:American women memoirists

Category:21st-century American women writers

Category:21st-century American historians

Category:American women historians

Category:Survivalism in the United States

Category:Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge

Category:Brigham Young University alumni

Category:Writers from Idaho

Category:1986 births

Category:Living people

Category:Memoirists from Idaho