Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About History Books
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"Almost from the moment
It is infinitely easier to critize a volume like this one than it is to write one. Succint, interesting summaries of sweeping historical eras are virtually always doomed to failure on some level, and I suppose, in the grand scheme of things, Davis does an Ok task. It's only that his writing is so bad. His prose is littered with pronouns defective clear antecedents and most irklingly, he constantly repeats proper nouns making for some seriously bumpy, seriously irritating reading:"Near from the moment Israel was born in 1948 out of their war of independence, Israel occupied a singular, untouchable position in American foreign policy." (pg. 506)
What were his editors thinking? How could they let such carelessness go by?? Peculiarly as this is a revised edition??? But maybe lousy writing is what one should learn to look from New York Times bestsellers????
And so there is his obvious political bias. Ok, and then The states history is full of dark and horrible moments which need to be brought to light. I think we are all pretty much clear on that indicate. But Davis goes i step too far with this negativity by taking a cynical view of every unmarried aspect of the nation's history. Surely some events were positive, hopeful or inspirational along the way? Certainly non according to Davis who takes a sick pleasure in highlighting moments of corruption, infamy, crime, power struggles and slaughter while flat-out ignoring brighter moments of the past. It makes for a very one-sided and depressing portrait of a nation which I would not recomend to anyone.
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OK, volume read. Merely every bit entertaining, witty, and iconoclastic as the original edition. I am very glad this book is dorsum on my shelves.
Currently rereading, actually. I taught avant-garde United states of america History I from this book, nearly 20 years ago. Davis has this new addition and my quondam one got "loaned out", so I bought new to find out what had been added.OK, book read. Just as entertaining, witty, and iconoclastic equally the original edition. I am very glad this book is back on my shelves.
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It is a expert succinct summary of American history. A distillation, if you will, of a large amount of research and
I read this book every bit a refresher on American History with a view to sitting a specific exam. In that respect, I suppose the book was successful in achieving my objective. Nonetheless, I would generally non recommend this book for anything other than every bit a springboard into farther report and thankfully for this purpose Davis provides a very detailed listing of further readings for each section.It is a good succinct summary of American history. A distillation, if you will, of a large amount of inquiry and reading. However, I have some serious issues with the book.
Firstly, I found the writing fashion to be poor at times. Information technology is overly journalistic, which I judge does make information technology more accessible and less dry. However, it is poorly edited, with several instances of vague pronouns or references which Davis does not clarify. Toward the end of the book the writer loses his control over adjectives equally they become sweepingly over-dramatic with wild metaphors and similies that I would expect to see in a ranting editorial rather than a text book.
Secondly, I was constantly shocked past the jagged transitions in the book. While I empathize and accept no issue with the particular question-and-answer style chosen past Davis, from the heart of the book onward I kept encountering the end of a department followed by an unrelated insertion of an "American Voice" with a line or a paragraph explaining the significance of the excerpt. Then he would launch into a new section once again unrelated to the "American Vocalism". It felt similar the book was once a bigger manuscript which the editor and then slashed without going dorsum to smooth over the new transitions.
Finally, I would advise that anyone reading this book should exist conspicuously aware of the author'due south goal, which is to right the problem of the way American history is taught in schools - poorly, with little critical thinking and oftentimes instruction apocryphal stories every bit facts and with frequent glossing over of the darker aspects. Every bit a result, the overall tone of this book rather negative. Davis starts out with a fairly balanced approach to the founding fathers, describing their intellectual genius every bit well every bit their prejudices. He also leaves Teddy Roosevelt and FDR more or less unscathed and the Civil Rights motion is described favourably. But for almost every other aspect of American history he concentrates on the negative is his attempt to redress US history whitewash taught in the classroom.
Ultimately, I have to go back to my comment almost treating this every bit only a springboard into further study or to brush off the cobwebs of earlier education. If I were a teacher I would marking downward whatsoever essay which relied on this book for inquiry instead of going to the original materials or the more than thorough enquiry Davis himself relies on and lists in his "Farther Reading" appendix.
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This is not to say DKMAH is a bad book or even bad history; its not. The volume is, though, pedestrian in the info contained and in the events covered. Yet, what it lacks in fabric, information technology makes up for in righteous indignation.
The existent problem with "Don't Know Much Nigh History" is that information technology prescribes to the Modernistic Schoolhouse of History, namely: annihilation white males did in the last 3,000 years is criminal, all of white men's successes are on the backs of other people, and white men are very lucky.This is non to say DKMAH is a bad book or even bad history; its non. The volume is, though, pedestrian in the info contained and in the events covered. Yet, what information technology lacks in material, it makes up for in righteous indignation.
The book covers all the bones tenants of American history- from the discovery of America (which the volume is quick to indicate out was already inhabited); the volume and then pokes fun at Columbus for naming the natives "Indians" because Columbus idea he was in Bharat (this is actually disputed among historians; its widely speculated that Columbus' name for the Natives was "in diego" which ways in Spanish "with God"; no surprise, the writer does non mention this), to Americas wars (ever dressed in the garb of Imperialism, sans Darth Vader) and this nations really sad record on civil rights. In other words, DKMAH takes relish in pointing out what a nasty country y'all alive in. And mutes the skillful stuff.
I volition give the book credit: information technology shines a spotlight at the areas of American History that may non have been covered by the history books, about notably, the devastation of the Native peoples, the full encompassment of the slave trade, etc. Notwithstanding, the tone set by the book is that everything nosotros all have is equally a result of past generations awfulness.
The book also has a peculiar double standard. About notable:
-Complete absence of Indian slaughters of settlers in colonial times;
-Peculiar word usage. As an example, when whites abduct Native children, its chosen "kidnapping"; when Natives did information technology to whites its called "adoption."
-In later years, there is blatant over-exaggeration of the American's racism against the Empire of Japan in WWII; historical records show that the United states of america thought the Japanese a potent enemy later Pearl Harbor; conversely, there is null mention in the book of the blatant Japanese racism against the Americans even Subsequently Midway.
The volume too has a really weird need to be overly offended and almost indulges in a "race to be the well-nigh outrageous." The white settlements of Native lands are called "genocide" and openly compared to Nazi Germany; a anarchism in Tulsa Oklahoma is referred to every bit "Ethnic Cleansing."
The concluding half of the book is solid; it clearly details Vietnam'due south disaster and the bug of Watergate, which most mod history classes completely overlook. Notwithstanding, while the book is quick to talk about every single civil rights setback, the book spends no time (ZERO) explaining the technological advancements of the nation after the Civil State of war and the names "Thomas Edison" and "Alexander Graham Bong" are not even mentioned. By reading this boo, while there is a long diatribe on JFK'south assassination and conspiracy theories (the book begrudgingly admits at that place was no conspiracy), you would non even know McKinley and Garfield were also assassinated.
The very concluding function of the book is an essay by the author called "American Terror" which was written by the author in the wake of the September 11 tragedy. I have to say that while I was mildly irked by the writer's attitude upward to this point, this next office blew my mind. The author openly compares the terrorists' attacks of Sept 11 to the Trivial Rock standoff (where nobody died, merely where black people were tormented past white people), along with MLK's assassination (the author comes dangerously close to saying the FBI did it), and several relatively balmy acts, just then deftly talks nearly John Brown. Basically, every single bad matter Americans did thorough their history is analogous to the terrorist attacks (including edifice the diminutive bomb to use against an enemy that openly attacked the states).
I really was fed upwardly with the volume past the cease.
All the same, take my review in step. If you take always wanted to acquire more about American history, add two stars to my review. If you are looking for deep nuggets of info that you missed, this volume will prove woefully inadequate. While there were times I found myself saying, "I didn't know that", they were few and far betwixt. I was relatively unimpressed with this very mediocre look at our history.
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Includes a elementary simply counterbalanced review of what the electoral college has meant to politics, a brusk revi
Honestly, the book's popularity almost speaks in place of a review. It's 518 years of the ameliorate bits of American History packed into 628 pages of writing. From my layman'due south perspective, he seems to have done a decent job highlighting the causes of the fumbles that American's have fabricated, the furnishings of the big moves, and canceling out some of the falsehoods that get passed down through the ages.Includes a uncomplicated simply counterbalanced review of what the balloter college has meant to politics, a short review of the Bill of Rights, and a pretty amazing bibliography, in addition to yeah, almost a m things I never learned or promptly forgot on the way out of adolescence.
Going to keep this on my bookshelf until some kid or one thousand-child needs it more than me.
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I suppose one could learn something is one is wholly ignorant of the subject, but the book is so shallow, that anyone with actual knowledge won't get much of annihilation.
A shallow popular history of the United States.I suppose one could learn something is i is wholly ignorant of the subject field, simply the book is so shallow, that anyone with actual knowledge won't become much of anything.
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Every single one of our founding fathers and all the men and women we consider great in the history of
Good overview of American history. The more I read about history, peculiarly American history, the more than appalled and the more hopeful I become. Appalled, considering humanity keeps making the same mistakes fueled by greed, apathy, and ignorance. Hopeful, because eventually a movement starts that achieves real change for the improve and because we as a species have proven our resilience over and over.Every single 1 of our founding fathers and all the men and women we consider nifty in the history of our nation were flawed. Many were self-serving, petty, ignorant, many were what we would telephone call overtly sexist or racist, many of our captains of manufacture viewed the impoverished masses as a caste that existed solely for their own personal enrichment (creating a monopoly and gouging your workers while paying off the political car to ensure that laws are enacted to your benefit is non creating a gratuitous market, by the style), some of them had extramarital diplomacy or rose to prominence via complicated (or sometimes simple, overt, and decadent) political deals. Notwithstanding at the same time many of these deeply, deeply flawed individuals did something incredible (though the means to that cease were quite ofttimes indefensibly atrocious). I'm still glad to exist living in the US, though a lot of our history makes me angry and/or sad. As 'great' equally we are as a nation, history reminds us that we nonetheless have the opportunity to be good.
Anyway, skilful refresher on American history. I'd exist willing to read the other books in this series.
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Eventually my inner-liberty-fighters overthrow my inner-autocrat, and re-establish the right of all Americans to be i
Every American should be lashed to a chair and forced to read this book. That's the sort of thought that pops into my head every now and then when I become in touch with my inner-despotic dictator. A benevolent autocrat, I hasten to add, because information technology truly would exercise all my boyfriend citizens a world of good. Americans are frighteningly ignorant about many things, particularly their own history.Eventually my inner-liberty-fighters overthrow my inner-despot, and re-establish the right of all Americans to be ignorant, misinformed, uneducated, and stupid. That'south the American way!
On a positive notation: Americans are no more ignorant and misinformed today than they have been throughout our history. Listening to the unbelievably stupid things coming out of talk radio and the net (and occasionally from the mouths of vice-presidential candidates), one can easily despair that the end of our land cannot be far off. But one of the points that this volume makes, and which, ironically, I take some comfort in, is that nosotros've been a nation of idiots all forth.
The founding fathers were themselves benevolent despots. They recognized fashion back then that pure "democracies" were only opportunities for powerful and wealthy demagogues to manipulate stupid people to their reward. That's why we accept a democratic republic, and not a pure democracy. That's why we have an electoral college. Because, as the founding fathers recognized, many if not most people in this land are woefully ignorant and could be used similar tools by rich evil bastards. The checks and balances they established over 200 years ago were put in place largely as a defense against "mob dominion," to prevent silver-tongued puppeteers from taking consummate control by lying to the uneducated masses, who have not, for example, ever read a history book.
Thanks to the vision of those founding fathers, our republic has survived for over 2 centuries. Information technology's survived wars, revolutions and depressions. Time will tell whether or not it will survive Pull a fast one on "news."
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Before I brainstorm, I should note that I only read the capacity through the Pilgrims earlier I started skimming, and then skipped to read the final capacity from Desert Storm onwards.
My first issue with information technology is that it's called "Don't Know Much About History." I picked it up erroneously assertive information technology was going to be about world history, a huge subject area about which I know niggling. Imagine my thwarting when I started reading and found the usual blah apathetic starting with Columbus and continuing on to Jamestown and the Pilgrims. This ~500 yr bit of homo history focused on half of a continent has been done to expiry in 12 years of unnecessary American history classes that rarely taught me anything useful or interesting. That this book mostly reiterated and reinforced all the useless and irksome things that I learned in history was an utter disappointment to me. False advertising!
My next upshot is with how shallow the treatment of history is hither. Big events are summed upwardly in a paragraph, wars in a list of dates and events. Instead of choosing new and interesting historical events to highlight, this book covers the same old irrelevant highlights that our history books do, merely stopping occasionally to deflate some of the myths, ordinarily the less relevant ones (like the Pilgrims carving 1620 on the bodily Plymouth Rock upon landing).
If y'all really desire an interesting volume that might fill in some of the holes in your history education, you should check out Lies My Teacher Told Me Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. When I picked up this book, I was hoping for more of that. Take as an example their treatments of the incident of Manhattan being sold for $24:
Don't Know Much About History:
" [Peter Minuit] quickly met with the local Indian chiefs. Before them he gear up a sales agreement for all of Manhattan Island and two boxes of merchandise goods worth sixty Dutch guilders. At the fourth dimension, that equaled two,400 English language cents, which has come downwardly in history as the famous $24 effigy."
Davis goes on to make some unrelated statements nigh how Dutch New Amsterdam was rowdier and less pious than Puritan New England.
Lies My Instructor Told Me:
"When students are informed that the Dutch bought Manhattan for $24 worth of trade goods, presumably they are meant to smile indulgently....What foolish Indians, not to recognize the potential of the island! Not ane book points out that the Dutch paid the wrong tribe for Manhattan. Doubtless the Canarsees, native to Brooklyn, were quite pleased with the deal. The Weckquaesgeeks , who lived on Manhattan and really owned the land, weren't so happy. For years subsequently, they warred sporadically with the Dutch." Loewen goes on to necktie this error into a trend of white settlers bungling or maliciously lying about land trades with the natives.
Fashion to take a great take a chance to actually dispel some historical myth and piss it abroad, Davis.
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I found, however, that equally we neared the present (this book ends at the terrorist attacks of nine/11) Davis' corking story-telling abilities fall to the style-side and nosotros're once once again given more than dates, more time lines and more than Proper Nouns without fully understanding why those nouns are important. We are left with familiar parallels: Middle East = oil, Russia = Communism, etc. without given insight into their ideologies and how exactly they disharmonize with our own. I understand that this is an American history book and perhaps Davis didn't feel it necessary to delve into the workings of other countries, but I feel as though doing and so might accept made all of those fourth dimension lines more than meaningful. I also suspect that in America's infancy, being more neutralist made information technology easier to concentrate on just those domestic affairs as we tried out best to turn our heads away from the residue of the earth.
Colonial times, the Civil State of war, World Wars 1 and 2 take had more time to marinate in the American psyche and as a event have become more romanticized. Perchance my lack of interest in the 1960'south has come from that romanticism being forced on the period prematurely, the lack of space between myself and the 1980s+ the reason those events seems dull to me. The good news is that there's plenty of history to feed my curiosities until these times truly ripen.
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More reflections on style in history writing: Davis uses what one reviewer calls the FAQ approach. The effect is to pause down the subject area to a series of chunks, or essays roughly equivalent in scale to what I was expected to write in my history 'o' level. Given the Amazon reader reviews, one could be cynical and think that this an test friendly format. I prefer to think that Davis is post-obit current skillful pedagogical practice and presenting each topic as a problem the student is invited to sol
More reflections on style in history writing: Davis uses what one reviewer calls the FAQ arroyo. The outcome is to pause down the subject to a serial of chunks, or essays roughly equivalent in scale to what I was expected to write in my history 'o' level. Given the Amazon reader reviews, one could be contemptuous and think that this an examination friendly format. I prefer to call up that Davis is following current good pedagogical practice and presenting each topic every bit a problem the student is invited to solve. This idea I garnered from Why Don't Students Similar Schoolhouse?: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Ways for the Classroom Willingham urges as well teachers to present their bailiwick every bit stories. The problem is at that place is a obvious conflict between the chunk approach and the story approach, some stories are quite small-scale in their ramifications, and can be told in chunks; others sprawl all over history, and are however alive issues. Davis is proficient at the chunking, not and then skillful at the story. One thing I would like to convey to my American Culture students is the overarching role the constitution has continuely played in American affairs - I fear that because the material is broken down into and so many chunks - that large story hasn't been told. ...more
Especially if you're a parent - read this and so your kids can ask y'all questions and you lot can have answers.
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I would recommend this book even to people who don't enjoy history simply for the perspective it will requite on the events of today. Information technology certainly did that for me. A quote attributed to Pearl Buck sums it upwardly well: "If you lot desire to understand today, you have to search yesterday."
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My Review: For me, this was more of a refresher course on American history as I'm fairly familiar with our nation'due south storied past. Yet, just every bit the author claims
Synopsis: Yes, this is a history book. It essentially covers US history from Christopher Columbus and the modern discovery of America up to the get-go few years of Obama'south Presidency. Originally published during Bush I's presidency, it was updated a couple of years ago to include the Clinton years, 9/xi and the Iraq & Afghanistan Wars.My Review: For me, this was more of a refresher course on American history as I'm adequately familiar with our nation'south storied by. Nonetheless, just as the author claims, this book was written in a much more like shooting fish in a barrel to assimilate and savor fashion than your typically history book. There were times where the writing style grated against me a bit, merely there were enough of other portions of the book that I thoroughly enjoyed.
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He is, according to Publishers Weekly, "a become-to guy for historical insight and assay."
AMERICA'S HIDDEN HISTORY as well became a New York Times bestseller on publication. A NATION Ascension also uses dramatic narratives to tell the "stories your textbooks left out."
His volume, THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF AMERICA AT WAR (May v, 2015) was called "searing" analysis by Publishers Weekly.
Kenneth C. Davis's success aptly makes the instance that Americans don't hate history, but the dull version they slept through in form. Only many of them want to know now because their kids are asking them questions they can't answer. Davis's arroyo is to refresh usa on the subjects we should accept learned in school. He does information technology past busting myths, setting the record direct and always remembering that fun is not a four-word letter of the alphabet give-and-take.
His recent volume, IN THE SHADOW OF LIBERTY: THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF SLAVERY, FOUR PRESIDENTS, AND 5 Black LIVES looks at the lives of v people enslaved by four of America'southward nearly famous Presidents and the role of slavery in American history and the presidency. In May 2018, his book More than DEADLY THAN State of war: The Hidden History of the Castilian Flu and the First Earth State of war was published.
In Oct 2020, his volume STRONGMAN: The Rise of 5 Dictators and the Fall of Democracy was published past Holt. Information technology was named a "All-time Volume of 2020" by Kirkus Reviews and the Washington Post.
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