The Penguin History of the United States of America

Rating:
Summary: A well-written history
Review: As a one volume history of the United States, this book is hugely impressive. Mr Brogan is an English academic and therefore brings an outsider's perspective to the subject. It is clear that he has a huge admiration for the USA and its people, yet that does not prevent him from taking a critical approach when needed. His writing style is stylish, witty, intelligent and above all, immensely enjoyable.

Naturally, in a one volume treatment a certain "whistle-stop" method must be used in dealing with certain themes and events. However Mr Brogan is very successful in conveying a real sense of the sweep and pattern of history and in describing how the United States was shaped and moulded into what it has become today. Certain themes have to be focused on at the expense of others. For example, in sociological and domestic terms, the black civil rights movement is featured prominently, and probably rightly, as the dominant domestic issue certainly in post-war times. However, this seems to have been at the expense at other trends which heavily influenced the development of US society and its economy in the last 100 years, namely the unique geographical mobility of Americans within their own country and the successive waves of immigration in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, topics which are touched on only relatively briefly.

Politically speaking, Mr Brogan comes across as a left of centre social democrat, hence FDR's New Deal social welfare initiatives are in receipt of particular praise and his detractors and opponents at the time subject to harsh criticism, prominent among these being the Supreme Court. FDR himself is described as someone whose "strength and ability went along with a profound, creative desire to shape America for a better future". Such men are therefore Mr Brogan's champions, men who were willing to fight against either of what he identifies as the twin evils which he have plagued US society, poverty and racism.

Nonetheless, free market Republicans need not feel completely alienated by this book, Mr Brogan is conspicuously fair-minded and balanced. For example, Ronald Reagan, who he rightly criticises for the "voodoo economics" he advocated and his morally questionable support of various murderous Central American regimes, is nevertheless described as someone who "responded to crises of every kind with eloquence, humour or courage, as necessary" and who recognised the appeal to Americans of strong, optimistic leadership, which suited him down to the ground as "he was by nature a cheerful soul". Less admiration is displayed for the cabal of Irangate conspirators he allowed to flourish in the recesses of the White House, in particular his "zealous but thick-headed assistant, Colonel Oliver North". Indeed.

The first edition of this book covered the period up to Nixon's resignation. This subsequent revised edition takes events up to around 1990 and the fall of the Berlin wall. A minor quibble therefore is the somewhat disproportionate attention given to Jimmy Carter and his presidency, added as part of the revisions. Fortunately it does not detract from a superb book.

Rating:
Summary: Penguin History of the United States of America
Review: Brogan's history of the U.S. is well-written and, on the whole, well-researched. I am considering the use of the book in a classroom setting because I am dissatisfied with another English historian's factual innacuracies in an otherwise good book. Brogan, too, makes some factual mistakes that irritate me. For example, he presents Gettysburg as a two-day battle when it was a three-day battle. His mistakes are much less glaring than are Paul Johnson's in his one volume history of the United States, but they are enough to make one ask why English historians writing about American history are too proud to ask an American historian to at least check facts for them before publishing.

Despite this, I rated the book at five stars (although I would have rated it at four-and-a-half stars if I could figure out how).

Rating:
Summary: Biased
Review: I can't pretend to have read the whole book, but instead it was used as a reference to an essay that I wrote on the Declaration of Independence. I quote: 'For the preamble, in the name of the people, denies that the strong may legitimately oppress the weak; and asserts that all men and women, whatever their age, condition or origins; shall not be cheated of their birthright into misery; that this theme, of human freedom of dignity, is what politics is about.'

Magnanimous, stirring stuff, I agree. But completely false. It does not assert that all men and women are equal, it asserts that all men are created equal, and this is meant only in the tersest of terms, for it can mean equality only in life, when one considers the immense differences in wealth; not in liberty or the pursuit of happiness. It does not count slaves as men, nor does it state that the slave trade is wrong, as the good delegates of South Carolina and Georgia still wanted to practise it, and thus it was deleted from the draft of the document. Jefferson, author of the declaration, owned hundreds of slaves.

History is written by the winners, but it should be down to future generations to judge its accuracy. Hugh Brogan does the facts a disservice in this book, and it disappoints me that others rate it so highly.

But then I am English, and perhaps I'm just annoyed we lost the war.

Rating:
Summary: Viral anecdotes
Review: Just adding to previous comments to emphasize the accessibility of this book to the general reader. Brogan's anecdotal style lends itself to a sustained interest, or at least it did in my case. The best example I remember is the story about Ulysses S. Grant who, on being informed that a new Confederate General had declared that his 'headquarters would be in the saddle' until Grant was defeated, responded that it sounded like a better place for the hindquarters to him.

Rating:
Summary: A BRILLIANT HISTORY OF THE U.S.A. FROM THE OLD WORLD
Review: One of the things Americans are surprisingly good at - far better than most of the world realises - is a sense of their own history. Of course the popular understanding of the past is a bit one-sided. After all most history gets written by the winners, which means that the losers are all too often made to look like natural losers or bad guys (or both!). Nevertheless, most modern Americans get the point of the Revolutionary War, the War Between the States, the Constitution, Emancipation and so on.

Things are not as transparent here in Britain. Most Brits today have only the most tenuous grasp of their own history, let alone anybody else's. Other than on the fantasy level, there is no personal involvement or commitment or even any real sense of continuity with the nation's past. Of course in one sense Britain is obsessed with history, but it is not the history of folks like you and me. Medieval aristocracy and castles may have a superficial romantic appeal, but to 95% of the UK population they are Other People's History. The pivotal events of national history: Magna Carta, Reformation, Commonwealth, Restoration, Glorious Revolution ....the list goes on and on.... are unheard of by most Britons let alone understood.

If this is Britain's attitude to its own history, what will be its attitude to the history of that Great Embarrassment, the lost Atlantic empire? The answer is that America is the Bermuda Triangle of British school history, the great silent factor, the missing key to understanding every era of Britain's past since the late 16th century. And of course this generates a vicious circle: Little wonder that Britain does not understand itself (and for the record, I write as a Briton), when one of the key factors that would give coherent sense to the last four centuries is a no-go area, a field ring-fenced against popular awareness through systematic neglect by educationalists and popular publishing houses.

Hugh Brogan's engrossing historical overview of America's past, from pre-history through to about 1990, has the best chance imaginable of changing this fossilised attitude. And it's a timely contribution to our understanding of the complex and threatening modern world that will be of as much value to America as it is to Britain. For a start, the book is readable. Brogan's academic credentials are impeccable, and yet unlike many academics he writes with grace, wit and considerable passion. While rarely short-changing the reader on hard facts, he never lets facts obscure the thread of the story, and that is all-important, because unless we see how one thing leads to another we will have nothing to contemplate but a bunch of meaningless facts. From the British viewpoint this is invaluable, because Brogan shows how Britain itself has been shaped by its transatlantic engagements at every key stage since the dawn of its own modern nationhood.

But Britain is a side-issue. Far more importantly, Brogan has done for the United States what only a warmly sympathetic outsider can do for any country. It needs both commitment and detachment in equal parts to sketch out the key events of a nation's history (and explain their meaning) free from the agenda that everyone has when they have grown up in a country and lived its internal political and economic tensions first hand. Apart from a generally liberal worldview, Brogan has no material bias: He has no wish to perpetuate the socially divisive myths that older generations have grown up with, and yet equally no wish to tear down the essential beauties of the American dream. In short he is socially, politically and economically uninvolved, but he is nevertheless caring and deeply attached to his subject, and he is not afraid to say what he thinks.

Thus whether you are American or not, this book is the ideal starting point for an honest investigation of America's - and therefore a helpful key to understanding its present.

Rating:
Summary: Short(ish) and Succint
Review: Packed with diverting insights and miscellaneous facts, this general history of the US is notable for its sweep, its sensibility and erudition. If you feel the need to understand the various periods in American, the central economic and political factors which drive the continuity and change from one period to another, this shortened history does an excellent job.

A couple of interesting facts: Tammany Hall was named after the Indian chief Tammany, who gave William Penn land to start his colony. Tammany gave Penn all the land he could walk in three days. Penn stopped after a day and a half and thanked Tammany for his generosity. But the next generation of Pennsylvanians organized a relay race and grabbed as much land as they could in the day and half that follwed. And the work bunk, or bunkum comes from a representative from South Carolina, who in the House of Representatives, delivered a long speech dealing only with local concerns, boring his fellows politicos. He apologized later, saying that the speech was intended only for "Buncum County."

Brogan is particularly adept at drawing incisive portraits of American presidents and leaders. Abraham Lincoln, who may be the most written about American President, is here given new life by Brogan as a man who was a sharp politician, ambitious, steeped in the give and take of democracy -- a side of Lincoln sometimes overlooked in oher biographies. His portraits of Carter, Nixon and Reagan are also insightful.

Great reading for the average reader and the history enthusiast and scholar as well. The average reader will appreciate the grace and insight with which he tells the big story, the history enthusiast and scholar will appreciate the odd details, and Brogran's often tangy slant on America and Americans

Rating:
Summary: A rare, truly excellent work
Review: The epitome of a thoughtful work for a non-specialist audience. Wise, witty, ironic, sophisticated, and extremely well-written.

Rating:
Summary: Sweeping Review in Brief
Review: The idea of explaining American history in about 700 pages certainly is ambitious. I have to take my hat of to Hugh Brogan for even trying. On the whole, he manges to do a reasonable job of it. If you're like me and you feel that your school district let you down when it set out to teach you about your own history, give this book a try.

He brings a unique perspective in reviewing American history as a Briton. Not being a product of American society and not having grown up with all of the ingrained myths that we have about our own country, he's able to bring some important objectivity.

On certain topics, the book is necessarily brief. However, Brogan manages to hit the themes that are overarching in American history, such as the struggle of African Americans and the European relationship (or lack thereof) to Native Americans.

As a small aside, I was stunned by the fact that he never even mentions the fact that Americans placed the first humans on the moon. I don't see how he could cover Vietnam and Watergate in detial while ignoring this parallel story.

Rating:
Summary: Informative but a little flippant and rushed
Review: This book almost deserves 4 stars. Well written, informative, interesting. Unfortunately, the author moves through 400+ yrs all too quickly as well as jests and editorializes when words would be better spent imparting more information.

Although, I haven't yet found a better book. Outside of textbooks that is.

FYI, the author is British( i believe, not American for sure) so it is an outsiders perspective. Not bad or good, just different.

Rating:
Summary: If you only read one book on American history...
Review: you could not do better than Hugh Brogan's. Not only is it immensely readable (and yes, funny) but, contrary to the comments of other reviewers, his outsider's perspective makes this book even more valuable to American readers. His balanced analysis of critical episodes in American history and their relation to broader trends in world history gives the reader a sense of the interdependency of historical development, something all too often absent from American textbooks. Most importantly, his passionate, though never craven, defence of European Enlightenment thinking, so critical in shaping the essence of American political thought and the philosophical underpinnings of its constitutional framework, is essential if one is to truly grasp the causal factors behind the world's first anti-colonial revolution. There can be no doubt, regardless of the temptation to view the period and its ideas through post-modern eyes, the political figures of the time, whether Tory or Whig, Loyalist or Rebel believed in their respective ideas. A failure to understand this simple fact results in a fundamental failure to grasp the great themes of the 18th century and those that have followed. Hugh Brogan's work should be celebrated wherever free people value what truly makes them free.