My knowledge of the early years of the USA is almost zero. I had a look today in our local library to try and rectify this situation . There are plenty of books on the War of Independace and the Civil War but not one about the eighty years or so in-between. Could fellow dopers recommend a good history book that covers this black hole in my knowledge. Thanks in advance.
Not knowing of any studies of the exact period, I’d definitely recommend parts 2,3 (especially) and 4 of Paul Johnson’s “History of the American People” ???
The book as a whole covers 1600-1990 - should be in any decent library.
I’d also recommend volumes 3 and 4 of Page Smith’s “A People’s History of the United Sates”
Unless there’s a different book with the same title, I believe you mean Howard Zinn’s. And it’s only one volume, so I imagine you got the title wrong, or there ARE 2 different books with the same title.
I still recommend Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States”.
Sort of. Page Smith has a series of books about different eras. For instance, the ones that Eutychus was referring to were The Shaping of America: A People’s History of the Young Republic Vol. 3. She wrote a whole series like this, with titles like A New Age Now Begins: A People’s History of the American Revolution all the way to Redeeming Time: A People’s History of the 1920s and the New Deal. I think there was something like 13 volumes. Much better than Zinn’s version, IMHO. But more because it goes into more depth.
She also wrote John Adams, which was pretty darn good.
Joseph Ellis’–he of vietnam vet wannabe in the classroom fame–is still a good writer, and his Founding Brothers is good on Hamilton and Burr. And even though James MacPherson’s Battle Cry of Freedom centers on the Civil War, his first two or three chapters are great on the 1830s-1850s. Hugh Brogan’s Penguin History of US is very readable, too.
There are other great books on the early 19th century, but you’ll run across them as you check out the footnotes and bibliog. of there more general survey type histories.
Eh, those books are great, but they’re a bit cumbersome.
I reccommend Kenneth Davis’ Don’t Know Much About History. It’s a fun and easy read, and covers the whole spread of American history in a very accessible way. It will give you a great overview.
Once you read that, if you are still interested, you can move on to more “serious” books.
Avoid Page Smith and Howard Zinn like the plague. Especially Zinn.
The books written by these men are undisputidly left-wing biased. However, where Smith is only biased, Zinn is down right vitriolic. Unless you are a die-hard Labour party Socialist, these are terrible, terrible books to have provide an introduction to American history.
I would suggest The Unfinished Nation by Alan Brinkley. It was my college textbook for both pre and post-civil war history ( I think that there might be an expanded version that split these eras into two books). It is a very concise, unbiased, factual history that would be an excellent intro for anyone. One of the really nice parts about it is that you can easily read it in “chunks”. I do not know if this was intentional, but it is very nice to be able to skip around if you want to and look up specific events without getting lost.
Avoid Page Smith and Howard Zinn like the plague. Especially Zinn.
The books written by these men are undisputidly left-wing biased. However, where Smith is only biased, Zinn is down right vitriolic. Unless you are a die-hard Labour party Socialist, these are terrible, terrible books to have provide an introduction to American history.
I would suggest The Unfinished Nation by Alan Brinkley. It was my college textbook for both pre and post-civil war history ( I think that there might be an expanded version that split these eras into two books). It is a very concise, unbiased, factual history that would be an excellent intro for anyone. One of the really nice parts about it is that you can easily read it in “chunks”. I do not know if this was intentional, but it is very nice to be able to skip around if you want to and look up specific events without getting lost.
I disagree with Maud’Dib’s judgement of Zinn’s work.
I’d recommend Lies My Teacher Told Me, by James Loewen. It’s both well-written and thought-provoking. And even if you think you know almost nothing about US history, you’ve probably picked up some of the popular knowledge and mythology about the US at some point. This book does a good job of separating good interpretations of verifiable data from the sometimes skewed or just plain made up versions of history we hear at times. (The better-substatiated, though less commonly known stories are usually more interesting, anyway! Make sure to check out the section about Squanto, in particular.)
groan I knew that someone was going to mention that book as well.
Don’t take my word for it, read the Amazon reviews. This is another book that has a far-left wing slant.
Guys, when you are providing someone with their first history book (especially in a subject like history!), you must make sure that what you give the are the basic undisputed facts. Now forgetting whether or not I agree or disagree with some of these other books (I am sure that there is a special place set up for Zinn after he dies for having the gall to call himself a historian), the books that you are recommending mostly focus on how we should interpret history.
An introductory history text should read like:
This event happened at Josephs field on June 3 1856.
Bob Smith did this, there, with them, on that date.
The Combine Harvester is a device that does this, and was invented by him, on this date.
Instead of
Was this event really that important?
Did Bob Smith have a greater influence then previously thought?
What was the real impact of the combine harvester?
etc. etc.
I know that I am mangling this a bit, and that the edges here are blurry (you do not want the text to just be a list of facts), but you only get into this sort of historical analysis after you have studied the basic history. To do otherwise is like starting a study of cooking by reading The Home and Gardens: Guide to the Perfect Cake before you read The Joy of Cooking.
If you’re looking for something quick and dirty, and relatively unbiased in either direction (no flag waving blind patriotism, but also no ranting about how the US is the epitome of evil), then try ‘The Cartoon History of the United States’ by Larry Gonick. And while you’re at it, look at Gonick’s other Cartoon History books - the guy writes great stuff that should probably used as textbooks in our schools!
While I disagree with Maud’Dib’s take on this, too, I have to say, this isn’t at all what the OP was looking for. Other than the 30 or so pages on slavery, this book, too, almost entirely ignores the time between the Revolution and the Civil War. If one is looking for something to read about that, then this isn’t the best place to start. It IS a good book, however.
Thank you to everyone for the above suggestions. Our County library network has a very good search and reservation system which I can access on-line from home. So I shall input a few titles and see what is available.