Rating: 
Summary: Slim, but Powerful
Review: This is a quick and slim collection of founding American documents. Being small it fits anywhere, on your shelf or in the schoolbag. Get it for Poli. Sci. students, Law Students, and Historians, or for you patriotic friend for the Fourth of July or Patriot Day.It has the basics that every American needs to know. It has the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, plus speeches form Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, and the Gettysburg Address. You get a good feel for the movers and shakers at this nations founding. Ignorance is an unpardonable sin. We need to understand the past to understand the present. We need to get back to these ancient and sacred writings to understand our country. They are a trustworthy and reliable source of information about who we are. There are several omissions. I would have like to have the Mayflower Compact included. The Monroe Doctrine was also missing-terrible shame! I would have also to have the Northwest Ordinance. Furthermore, it would be helpful to have the Articles of Confederation. The Constitution only makes sense in context of the mistakes of the Articles of Confederation. Lastly, I would have included more from the Federalist Papers, such as 1, 2,13, 14, 55 and 84. But this would have bloated the book, thus loosing it's slim effectiveness. Maybe they could put all of this in a Volume II.
Rating: 
Summary: An excellent source
Review: Whether you are a student or a writer, a historian or a casual observer, this is a great collection to have. It includes many of the most pertinent documents in American history, as well as a myriad of useful speeches, which are all excellent for quoting in essays, term papers, etc. Some of the documents are available only in this book, and it is the best collection I have seen at this price. Overall, a great buy.
Rating: 
Summary: Incomplete
Review: While having the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution in one binding is convenient enough, it's what's omitted from this book--given the title--that is glaring and puzzling. Just one Federalist essay? There are 84 others, two or three of which are more important than Number 10. None of the Anti-Federalist papers? Not one? Nothing by Benjamin Franklin or Thomas Paine? None of the histories by Francis Parkman? I won't beat a dead horse.
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