Help me become interested (and educated) in American history

Cafe Society
21

Personally I’d avoid reading biographies until you have a better grounding in general history. There are very few if any people in history who’ve had lives so fascinating that you can spend 500 pages talking about them without becoming boring somewhere along the line or having to descend into real minutiae that few aside from academics care about. Go instead for the broader histories, then you can narrow it down later.

Since nobody can deny the importance of wars in defining America, you have to get a good foundation there. A former Marine corps officer and journalist named Robert Leckie has written a series of popular one-volume histories of America’s wars. They include George Washington’s War , None Died in Vain (Civil War), and Delivered From Evil (World War II) as well as others on Korea, 1812, etc… While they’re not what you would call scholarly or groundbreaking or controversial, what they are is extremely readable and interesting even for somebody who has no real foundation in military strategy or American history. In addition the battles, he gives biographies of the key players as he goes, including several of the lesser known but very important figures, and makes a complex subject simple to grasp.

For WW2, it’s hard to beat the book or the miniseries version of Band of Brothers , a series so great that even Jimmy Fallon couldn’t hurt it (though I’m sure Tom Hanks had to slap him around to keep him from cracking up). This series literally begins where most war movies leave off, and best of all it’s closely based on a true story. While most war movies (even excellent ones like SAVING PRIVATE RYAN and THE LONGEST DAY) only concern one battle or one character for time reasons, this one follows a company from basic training in Georgia to postwar Germany and addresses things seldom covered in war movies such as replacements, points, promotions, officer changes, etc. and it’s just fascinating.

Lots of good miniseries and documentaries from the brothers Burns including NEW YORK CITY, THE CIVIL WAR, MARK TWAIN, THOMAS JEFFERSON, LEWIS & CLARK should all be available free and easy through Interlibrary Loan. (I’m a librarian myself and ordered all of these with some recent gift money.)

Ditto the above recommendations of THE FIFTIES (excellent book that can be read cover to cover or one chapter at a time), RAGTIME, 1776 (I’ve known several professors who show this movie to history classes), and LITTLE BIG MAN (Custer was my hero when I was a boy, then I saw this movie and was sad they could only kill him once).

Speaking of Custer, I’d read Dee Brown’s classics Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee (about the rape of Native Americans) and The Gentle Tamers (about women of the west, including Libby Custer and Belle Starr) for some quick and easy and interesting reading about the American west. The Conrad Richter Awakening Land trilogy (The Trees ,The Fields and The Town ) are amazing novels on the opening of the Ohio frontier from ca. 1790-1860 and inspired one of the greatest miniseries ever aired.

22

There is nothing nutty in calling the drafters of the Constitution criminals. It is simply a statement of fact. Amendments to the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union had to be ratified by each and every state. The Constitution illegally broke the old compact and established a new government for nine states when New Hampshire ratified on June 21, 1788. The Constitution was unconstitutional so its creators were breaking the law… to make new law. There is no reason to doubt someone’s hold on reality for pointing this out. Now ignoring the rest of American history because of this fact does seem odd.

I haven’t read Decision at Philadelphia but at least its title is less slavish than Elizabeth Drinker Bowen’s book. I found Miracle at Philadelphia interesting but far from essential. It offers details and anecdotes to round out the story of the federal convention but falls squarely into the modern patriotic tradition of tending to ignore information that puts the Framers in a bad light. This makes a lot of the tidbits she offers trivial compared to what is left out. She relates that Elbridge Gerry was worried-looking but not that he was concerned the “Federalists” were reading his mail. She says that Nathaniel Gorham was “indifferently educated but likable” but not that while President of Congress he had contacted European leaders about becoming king in America. Clinton Rossiter’s slightly more modestly titled 1787: The Grand Convention, while in the same tradition, remains the best source of detail that I know of on the convention proper. He lavishes 59 pages on the men of the convention before opening the curtain on the drama itself.

I haven’t yet found a balanced survey of the convention. Given the Constitution’s position at the center of American political identity I doubt any American could write one. The best I have found is in E Pluribus Unum: The Formation of the American Republic, 1776-1790. Forrest McDonald is conservative but seems more interested in telling the story as he sees it than whether or not it ruffles feathers. You don’t fully understand the Connecticut Compromise until you read his book ( unless you go directly to the primary and/or secondary sources of course ). I suppose the progressive work covering the same period to be juxtaposed would be Jensen’s New Nation but I haven’t read it yet. For a work more social and literary I can recommend Larry Tise’s The American Counter Revolution: A Retreat from Liberty, 1783-1800. For the debate outside the federal convention, such as it was, The Antifederalists: Critics of the Constitution, 1781-1788 by JTM is irreplaceable. It is the only book I have found that even touches upon the effects of the control of the mail by the “Federalists”. For a comprehensive state by state approach pick up Ratifying the Constitution edited by Gillespie and Lienesch.

23

Er, Miracle was written by Catherine Drinker Bowen.
Elizabeth Drinker would be her 18th century kinswoman.

Just my 2sense

24

OK, 2sense, but my teacher never talked about that. Only about the part where they didn’t change the name of the country. He didn’t seem to be annoyed about anything else.

Anyway, thanks everyone for some great suggestions. I’ve seen a lot of those titles at bookstores. I’ve actually read Lies my teacher told me, but that’s the only one. I’ll head off to the library when I get home (am out of town visiting family).

25

I find this a very curious statement. First, when before 1966 was there ever not a patriotic tradition of putting the Framers into a good light? And since the book came out in 1966, how do you call this modern? She was at the tail end of that era of narrative histories just before everything changed in the academic world.

You offer a terrific set of specialist titles, but I will note that the OP asked for popular histories so I consciously avoided all academic tomes.

26

“Lies My Teacher Told Me” was quite good.

I also highly recommend “The Cartoon History Of The United States,” for a quick-reading overview of “what happened.”

27

Wang-Ka beat me to it: Larry Gonick’s cartoon books are fun and readable, and a good way to get familiarized with the broad scope of a subject.

“You exploit me! You really, really exploit me!”

28

For a quick overview that will set the context for all the other more “serious” books you will read, Gonick is superb.

29

There’s some critical discussion of Loewen’s books in these threads:

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=163475

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=57812

30

genie,

I wasn’t trying to defend your teacher, it sounds like he wasn’t doing a very good job. I just wanted to make the point.

** Exapno Mapcase**,

I’m not an expert on historiography but here is my understanding: The old patriots were dominant in the 1800s but at the beginning of the last century a new historical school came to prominence. The Progressive historians, with Charles Beard as the most prominent, were willing to critize the Constitution and those who made it. By modern patriotic tradition I am referring to authors that seem to be trying to rescue the Framers from the critical analysis of the Progressives. Some do so directly, most notably Forrest McDonald and Robert E. Brown, and others by ignoring the points of the Progressives along with almost everything else which puts the Framers in a bad light. Ms Drinker Bowen falls into the 2nd category. Hell, I could probably give someone a more accurate understanding of 1787 in five minutes of conversation than does her entire book.

That was the tradition I was talking about but I note that there are still narrative histories of the federal convention written since 1966. Your other recommendation came out in 1987 as did Fred Barbash’s The Founding and just last year Carol Berkin published yet another subtly titled narrative: A Brilliant Solution. I haven’t read the later but I found Barbash’s book more informative, if less detailed, than Miracle. I consider all of the books I have mentioned suitable for the general public with the possible exception of Jackson Turner Main’s, The Antifederalists. Being a layman myself I don’t read many specialist histories.

Just my 2sense