Any recommendations?
Any recommendations?
A People's History of the United States by Zinn
The American Pageant, by David M. Kennedy, Lizabeth Cohen and Thomas Bailey.
It's a textbook but very readable and comprehensive, from pre-Colombian times to Bill Clinton. You can probably get an older edition pretty cheap online.
"A History of the American People" by Paul Johnson. It's long (almost 1000 pages) but worth your while. Johnson is a reasonably decent writer, brilliant at times.
I go back to it all the time. Lots of good quotes, such as when Ben Franklin briefly contemplated the possibilty of paying men of English ancestry to marry women of German ancestry in order to advance assmimilation. But Frankin decided against his own idea, saying:
"German women are generally so disagreeable to an English eye that it would require great portions to induce Englishmen to marry them." (p. 198)
Ceasefire wrote:
A People's History of the United States by Zinn
This.
towhee wrote:
"A History of the American People" by Paul Johnson. It's long (almost 1000 pages) but worth your while. Johnson is a reasonably decent writer, brilliant at times.
I go back to it all the time. Lots of good quotes, such as when Ben Franklin briefly contemplated the possibilty of paying men of English ancestry to marry women of German ancestry in order to advance assmimilation. But Frankin decided against his own idea, saying:
"German women are generally so disagreeable to an English eye that it would require great portions to induce Englishmen to marry them." (p. 198)
If you like Ben Franklin, you can't go wrong with Carl Van Doren's biography of him.
And I see that two posters have recommended Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States." It isn't really an introduction to American history, so much as a prosecutor's indictment of America, i.e. basically just a list of bad things that American people and institutions have done. Interesting book for sure, but maybe not best for an introductory/overview.
I tried Zinn before and I felt as if he was expecting his readers to be familiar with the basic storyline and he was giving a new interpretation. I thought it expected more knowledge than I have.
Interested non-American wrote:
I tried Zinn before and I felt as if he was expecting his readers to be familiar with the basic storyline and he was giving a new interpretation. I thought it expected more knowledge than I have.
"The American Pageant" is good for someone lacking background knowledge. It's typically used for college freshman/advanced high school Intro to American History type classes. That is to say, it is used by people who probably have less knowledge of American history than you do!
If you're thinking that a school textbook is just a course in How Great America Is, don't worry. School textbooks from the 1950s-1960s and before (e.g. Henry Steele Commager) were, but they aren't now - at least that one isn't. It is very balanced, and includes the good and the bad that the US of A has done.
Kennedy (the main author) is quite a good historian, and got a Pulitzer (a prestigious literary award in America, if you didn't know) for his book on the Depression, part of the really excellent Oxford History of the United States series (which is a good place to go if you want more detail on some specific period of American History).
And no, I'm not a book salesman, I just used the book in my high school US History class about a decade ago and really liked it.
Thanks very much--to all of you. I think I'll have a look for The American Pageant.
A Patriot's Guide to American History, by Schweikart and Allen.
This is a good counter-point to Zinn's leftist indictment of American history. Since you've read Zinn, you might try a different take. It is readable, fairly accurate (the later editions rectified some inaccurate details) and really tries to be even handed. It is NOT a rigid ideologue's book, although it certainly has a strong conservative bent.
Both Zinn and Schweikart/Allen wrote through a specific and deliberate lens. Zinn's account is revisionist and distinctly Marxist (which I have serious reservations about) and at times is very trying for a true history student to appreciate. I particularly like "A Concise History of the American Republic," which is an abridged version of Samuel Morison's larger work. Though much of it has been revised, Morison's eloquent prose remains intact. You can find the 2nd edition on amazon for roughly $15-20 used.
Devin Hester wrote:
A Patriot's Guide to American History, by Schweikart and Allen.
This is a good counter-point to Zinn's leftist indictment of American history. Since you've read Zinn, you might try a different take. It is readable, fairly accurate (the later editions rectified some inaccurate details) and really tries to be even handed. It is NOT a rigid ideologue's book, although it certainly has a strong conservative bent.
Agreed, read these two. They are both skewed in completely opposite directions but both bring up interesting and opposing views.
Although a military history, much of U.S. culture and policy is included in Geoffery Perret's "A Country Made By War", which I am currently in the midst of. I just finished his biography of U.S. Grant and find him to be one of the best writers on any topic. His ability to surmise a character or events in a few sentences, and to maintain momentum makes for a great read, yet enriching as well.
A History of the American People by Paul Johnson.
You can buy it at Amazon for about $13.
Written by a gifted English historian, author, journalist - an excellent history written by a generally supportive non-American.
His History of the Modern World should be a school textbook.
My advice is to keep away from anything that's a high school text (and I think that's what Zinn is), as they're prone to whitewash history, telling the "good" without the "bad". You may want to consider something like The Oxford Companion to United States History.