Looking for American History book

Cafe Society
1

After Christmas and we get our move completed, my husband and I want to start a study of American US History together. I don’t know that we need an overview book (although my niece said she’d give us her college textbook instead of selling it back – isn’t she sweet?). So we want some actual books on sections of history, nothing too dry or heavy, but that will give us a good understanding and knowledge of US History, with maybe some fun stuff thrown in sometimes.

We both love History, and my husband has read a bit more than me, although he usually reads more about world events than US history. While I love it, I really have never studied it outside of classes. I worry that a lot of what I know comes from historical fiction (although things that interest me I usually end up googling and at least getting a handle on the truth).

Since there is such a huge scope of American History, I’ll start by asking about pre-Revolution stuff. Any ideas of good things to read about early America, explorers, Mayflower/Jamestown/St. Augustine, etc.? Then we will move on to the Revolution.

I’d love to see a little bit on culture and fashion, day-to-day life, and things like that as well as just the history, but I don’t want to end up with a project that is going to take us the rest of our lives.

Thanks to anyone with suggestions!

2

Well, that’s certainly a big task that you’ve set yourself.

My suggestions for the pre-Revolutionary period are mainly scholarly works that i read in grad school. These are books that i found not only very informative but entertaining to read. Obviously, you might have different interests, or might be entertained by different types of writing.

Jane Kamensky, Governing the Tongue: The Politics of Speech in Early New England.

Fascinating work that gives excellent insight into the history of colonial New England, while also talking about the ways in which rules about and control over speech served to reinforce certain ideas and values. Good stuff on gender relations, in particular, and on some of the key moments in the history of the Puritan colony, like the trial of Anne Hutchinson.

David Hall, Worlds of Wonder, Days of Judgment: Popular Religious Belief in Early New England.

You really can’t talk about Puritan New England without talking about religion, but in this book Hall moves away from the famous preachers like John Winthrop and Cotton Mather to look at how everyday people thought about God and practiced their religion. He finds that, despite being part of a strict godly community, people balanced their faith and their more wordly needs in various ways. Some were devoted churchgoers in the mold that we generally understand as Puritan, while others were what the author calls “horse-shed Christians,” who we far more lax about their observances.

Edmund Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom.

Indispensable study of colonial Virginia. Looks at the social and political and economic development of the colony, the negotiations and alliances and battles with Native Americans, and the way in which all of these things contributed to the rise of tobacco culture and the development of chattel slavery. Does a great job tracing the emerging ideologies of race, and also of following the class differences that contributed to tensions within the colonizing society.

Richard White, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815.

As the sub-title suggests, this book stretches into the early national period, but that doesn’t make it any less useful. It’s a fascinating study of the relationships among and between European powers and the Native American peoples of the Great Lakes region. The book is generally considered a ground-breaking work, and is essential reading in any course on the history of European/Native American contacts.

Kathleen Brown, Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs: Gender, Race, and Power in Colonial Virginia.

Covers a similar time period and place to Edmund Morgan, but focuses on the role played by gender in colonial Virginia, particularly the ways in which ideas about gender roles contributed to racial ideas and the rise of slavery, and in which those racial ideas also transformed notions about gender.

3

American Colonies: The Settling of North America, by Alan Taylor. First (and so far only published) volume of The Penguin History of the United States. Lots of fascinating stuff about Indian cultures, political and trade relations between Indians and Europeans, the early slave trade, conditions of slavery in the Caribbean (worse than you ever imagined), and the (real) pirates of the Caribbean. (Did you know that at one point, Captain Morgan was the Provisional Governor of Jamaica? Or that pirates, when they took a ship, would put the captain on trial, and hang or spare him according to whether his crew testified he had treated them cruelly or not?)

4

Mayflower, Nathaniel Philbrick. This is an excellent early history of the colonies (not so much about the voyage itself) and includes the extensive interaction with the Indians.

Undaunted Courage, by Stephen Ambrose. An outstanding account of the Lewis and Clark Expedition and the events leading up to it.

5

I second this book. It was a very easy but informative read.

I don’t have anything to suggest just yet, I need to go home to look at my collection.

6

I haven’t actually read this book yet, but i’m going to support it simply based on the author. Alan Taylor is an outstanding historian and a fabulous writer. His earlier work, William Cooper’s Town, won the Pulitzer Prize, the Bancroft Prize, and the Beveridge Prize.

7

Thank you guys so much! I feel like I will get lots better suggestions here than just browsing at the bookstore. I know we are setting ourselves up for something big, and who knows how far we will get, or how often we might take breaks, but we hope it will be lots of fun too!

8

Thirding (?) this. Not only is it informative, it’s extremely well-written and engaging. I kid you not when I say that I had trouble putting it down, it was so interesting.

9

I’d also recommend reading as an along side thing Lies My Teacher Told Me.

It’s a (filthy left wing :slight_smile: ) view of how US History in particular at high school text book level has been distorted by the right. It has an excellent part on pre-Revolution relations with the native population.

10

Just say no to James Loewen. Not a trustworthy source of information.

11

I’d like to add a note about this book:

I think it’s an outstanding piece of work, and does a great job of showing the way that the particular emphasis of certain historical writing tended to push aside or distort important aspects of our past. I’m not sure i’d go so far as to say “distorted by the right,” because in many cases the distortions and omissions discussed by Loewen were committed by left-liberal historians, and were as much a product of historical inertia (i.e., not updating old stories with new information) as of right-wing pressures.

Also, as good as the book is, it was almost out of date the minute it was published. The textbooks discussed by Loewen are no longer in print (at least, not in the editions he discusses), and many of the issues he discusses have been rectified in a lot of commonly-used textbooks. Textbook publishing is one of the fastest moving (in terms of new books, and new editions of old books) sections of the industry, and many of Loewen’s criticisms are much less relevant now than they were when his work was first published.

That’s not to say that textbooks are perfect; far from it. And it’s certainly true that conservatives tend to have a disproportionate influence on getting certain things left out of, or put into, textbooks. That’s partly because Texas, as the largest state with K-12 state-level textbook adoption, has a big influence on what does and does not get published. But it’'s not just right-wing ideology that’s a factor here. The biggest challenge for a textbook publisher these days is not offending people; if you offend people, they make a noise, and nothing kills a textbook adoption more quickly than controversy.

12

I’m not a big King of the Hill fan, but they did make a point in the episode where Bobby’s class studies “Texas History,” and the textbook makes no mention at all of the Texas Revolution (focusing instead on trivia like when and how the state flower was adopted). Hank Hill asks the administrators why not, and they say everything has been taken out that might give offense. “Offense to who?” “Lawyers, mostly.”

13

To add further, I’d read Loewen not as a critique of the text books as such, but instead for a different outlook on history. Even if you don’t agree with him, reading different views is always of benefit.

14

It’s not a question of not agreeing with him. Loewen deceives his readers. I agree with him on many issues, but that doesn’t make him a trustworthy historian.

15

To be honest, I’d need a little more than the completely uncited assertions of someone about whom I know nothing to discredit Loewen, especially when it seems much of your complaining is about his implications, in particularly about the founder of the Klan.

But just as if someone was coming at British history for the first time I would recommend they read The Making of the English Working Class by E.P. Thompson, as well as works by Eric Hobsbawn, despite critiques of their accuracy, in order to recognize there are different ways of looking at history, so to I recommend acknowledging the viewpoint that top-down, traditional American history is not the sole way of looking at things. And Loewen is a damn good read, too - very accessible.

16

Ah, so the subject matter under discussion determines whether lies are appropriate? Well then, you have absorbed Loewen’s philosophy entirely.

As for cites, this discussion came up in a very old thread that got eaten in The Great Conversion. I did cite the specifics I remembered and which illustrate his deceptions, but would rather not go back and check his footnotes again. You can either believe me or not when I tell you that many of his footnotes don’t check out.

Or (and here’s a crazy idea) you could research a few of the footnotes for yourself rather than just relying on Loewen’s say-so.

17

Sorry, but “My [other] post is my cite” doesn’t quite cut the mustard around here.

Not only that, but in your other post you admit that “I don’t have the book in front of me but my recollection is…” Not exactly compelling evidence when you’re making a specific assertion of dishonesty.

18

I highly recommend A New World by Arthur Quinn. It’s an excellent book on colonial American history and, as a bonus, you can pick up a used copy on Amazon very cheaply.

19

Look at the book yourself, if you doubt me. The misrepresentations are there (specifically relating to Forrest City Arkansas and Rome, Georgia) just as I have described them.

As for the footnote issue, sorry, I am not going to spend a couple of hours in the library replicating the research on a post that’s been eaten. Believe me or not, I guess.

If you feel comfortable swallowing what Loewen tells you uncritically, well, that’s your lookout.

20

It is extremely amusing that you say things like this. You are criticizing Loewen for incorrect footnotes, and then you make stuff like this up. Where does anyone say that you should “swallow what Lowen tells you uncritically”?

Nowhere.

You also say:

Again, I never said that lies were appropriate. I will say that in my experience, revisionists and apologists tend to need their cites checking more, and therefore I am more wary of claims from those seeking to rehabilitate someone like Forrest. But that’s not what you claimed I said.

Your posts are repeated misquotes and misinterpretations of other peoples. And we should simply take your word that Loewen commits the same sins? Well, I guess you could always tell us it takes one to know one.

And apologies for the hijack. I’d 100% recommend reading the book, not as a blind account of everything that has occurred in US history, but instead as an interesting, and very readable, counterpoint. Even if (and I am not saying it does) one of Loewen’s other works fails to give true deference to the founder of the Klan.