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A Pocket History of the United States

by Allan Nevins, Henry Steele Commager (Author)

Other authors: See the other authors section.

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400162,784 (3.61)3
A Pocket History * of the * United States traces the history of the nation that is, today, the oldest constitutional democracy in the world. Written by distinguished American historians, it has more than 2,000,000 copies in print worldwide and is one of the classic works in its field. The United States, with its variety of peoples and races, its cultures inherited and new, is the most ambitious experiment in the history of nations-an experiment still very much alive. There are few parallels in modern history to the adventure of its swift expansion across a giant continent and the growth of a few struggling colonies into a nation of fifty states, united by religious tolerance, economic opportunity and political democracy. Now revised and updated, this remarkable volume presents and interprets the rise of the American people from their earliest settlements to the emergence of the U.S. as a world power, through the latest changes in foreign and domestic politics, up to and including the 1991 war with Iraq. Maps * Bibliographies * Index.… (more)
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A decent short narrative history of the United States, running from 'the planting of the colonies' to World War II.

It has a few flaws, although its not terrible overall. Its main problems are that the prose is sometimes tinted with a bit of romaticism-- it would have been better if the authors had written slightley more seriously, and not tried to give it the air of an amusing school textbook-- and that the text is sometimes a bit cluttered by relatively unimportant facts-- it may be a short narrative, but it isn't tight....

And of course, it's also pretty old-fashioned, for better or worse. On the whole, not terrible, but certainly not great.

(7/10) ( )
  Tullius22 | Mar 31, 2010 |
An old-fashioned account of the history of the United States that doesn't cover up America's bad aspects, but it generally treats America as a progressively better nation (for bad or good). It is a sort of 1940s progressive liberal/Whig history of the US. It does lean towards Democrats beginning in the 20th century and needs many more maps, but it is still good.

That is, up until the modern update courtesy of Jeffrey Morris, which might be described as: Democrats good, Republicans bad. Nowhere is this most apparent when he talks about Reagan, who comes across as a genial cipher (the "amiable dunce" myth). And Morris just makes stupid, ahistorical comments, case in point, p. 624: "The President's overarching goal in the area of domestic policy was to reduce the role of the federal government, a policy traditionally associated with the party of Jefferson, not that of Lincoln." REALLY? Maybe the analogy holds true for Jefferson and Lincoln themselves, but not their parties, at least not since the 1890s. Has Morris ever heard of, I don't know, Republicans like Harding and Coolidge who pruned government? or government growers like Wilson, FDR, and LBJ, who created bloated bureaucracies? What party did the last three belong to? Hint, they ain't Republicans. Absolutely and utterly biased against conservatives. ( )
  tuckerresearch | May 31, 2008 |
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Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Allan Nevinsprimary authorall editionscalculated
Commager, Henry SteeleAuthormain authorall editionsconfirmed
Kylstra, L.Translatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Lafarge, ClaudeTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Morris, Jeffrey BrandonContributorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed

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A Pocket History * of the * United States traces the history of the nation that is, today, the oldest constitutional democracy in the world. Written by distinguished American historians, it has more than 2,000,000 copies in print worldwide and is one of the classic works in its field. The United States, with its variety of peoples and races, its cultures inherited and new, is the most ambitious experiment in the history of nations-an experiment still very much alive. There are few parallels in modern history to the adventure of its swift expansion across a giant continent and the growth of a few struggling colonies into a nation of fifty states, united by religious tolerance, economic opportunity and political democracy. Now revised and updated, this remarkable volume presents and interprets the rise of the American people from their earliest settlements to the emergence of the U.S. as a world power, through the latest changes in foreign and domestic politics, up to and including the 1991 war with Iraq. Maps * Bibliographies * Index.

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