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1,001 Things Everyone Should Know About American History

1,001 Things Everyone Should Know About American History

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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Indispenible reference work.
Review: "1001 Things Everyone Should Know about American HIstory" is a quick, breezy reference work that covers such diverse topics as famous families, famous and significant Americans, key military events, important legislation, and notable sppeches. At roughly 200 pages, this book contains a wide range of American history that will be especially valuable to high school and college students. Even if you're a regular reader of American history, you'll find this book is a quick and easy-to use source for answers to to recurring questions about the American saga. It's much easier to consult this book's summary of great American speeches than spend hours as the library looking for the comparisons and contrasts between Lincoln's "House Divided" speech and his "Gettysburg Address." The book also contains an abundance of contemporary sketches and photographs. Highly recommended.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Indispenible reference work.
Review: "1001 Things Everyone Should Know about American HIstory" is a quick, breezy reference work that covers such diverse topics as famous families, famous and significant Americans, key military events, important legislation, and notable sppeches. At roughly 200 pages, this book contains a wide range of American history that will be especially valuable to high school and college students. Even if you're a regular reader of American history, you'll find this book is a quick and easy-to use source for answers to to recurring questions about the American saga. It's much easier to consult this book's summary of great American speeches than spend hours as the library looking for the comparisons and contrasts between Lincoln's "House Divided" speech and his "Gettysburg Address." The book also contains an abundance of contemporary sketches and photographs. Highly recommended.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: See how many of these 1001 thing "you know": did you pass?
Review: John A. Garraty's "1,001 Things Everybody Show Know About American History" is an interesting combination of strengths and weaknesses. Each of the eight parts is arranged chronologically, which is useful to both teachers and students who are using this as a supplemental reference book in a history class. What is arguably the strongest section, dealing with Politics, comes first and offers a nice array of nicknames, slogans, laws, court decisions and other items of political importance. The part on People looks at famous families, but wisely expands the idea from political families such as the Adams and the Roosevelts to include anybody of note named Johnson, Jones or Smith. The sub-section of "Famous Indiscretions" is interesting, especially when it tosses in harry Truman's letter to music Critic Paul Hume along with the Fugitive Slave Act and Watergate.

The "weakest" section is on Presidents, which consists entirely of quotations about each man, and not always flattering ones; Jefferson, Franklin and Hamilton have trouble finding anything nice to say about John Adams, for example. If you want to find out anything more substantial about any of the Presidents you need to go to the index to see where such things are scattered throughout the book. The quotes are certainly interesting and may even be of use in a history paper, but one of the "1001 Things Everybody Should Know About American History" is not that Roscoe Conkling through the Arthur Administration was not heroic. However, I have to admit that biographical capsules of all the Presidents are readily available elsewhere and these quotes are certainly different way of approaching this topic.

The section on Military Matters provides some nice, concise summations of various battles and rebellions as does the final section on Matters Economic and Otherwise in terms of anonymous inventors, strikes and fiascos. On balance, one of these things that speaks well for Garraty's book is how it balances the good and the bad. What "Everybody Should Know About American History" covers the entire spectrum and no matter how much you already know, or think you know, you will learn a thing or too. Yes, the title is pure hyperbole, but given the increasingly narrow focus on most high school history textbooks this is an excellent supplemental text that gives teachers some concise, pertinent facts to throw into each and every unit throughout the year.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: See how many of these 1001 thing "you know": did you pass?
Review: John A. Garraty's "1,001 Things Everybody Show Know About American History" is an interesting combination of strengths and weaknesses. Each of the eight parts is arranged chronologically, which is useful to both teachers and students who are using this as a supplemental reference book in a history class. What is arguably the strongest section, dealing with Politics, comes first and offers a nice array of nicknames, slogans, laws, court decisions and other items of political importance. The part on People looks at famous families, but wisely expands the idea from political families such as the Adams and the Roosevelts to include anybody of note named Johnson, Jones or Smith. The sub-section of "Famous Indiscretions" is interesting, especially when it tosses in harry Truman's letter to music Critic Paul Hume along with the Fugitive Slave Act and Watergate.

The "weakest" section is on Presidents, which consists entirely of quotations about each man, and not always flattering ones; Jefferson, Franklin and Hamilton have trouble finding anything nice to say about John Adams, for example. If you want to find out anything more substantial about any of the Presidents you need to go to the index to see where such things are scattered throughout the book. The quotes are certainly interesting and may even be of use in a history paper, but one of the "1001 Things Everybody Should Know About American History" is not that Roscoe Conkling through the Arthur Administration was not heroic. However, I have to admit that biographical capsules of all the Presidents are readily available elsewhere and these quotes are certainly different way of approaching this topic.

The section on Military Matters provides some nice, concise summations of various battles and rebellions as does the final section on Matters Economic and Otherwise in terms of anonymous inventors, strikes and fiascos. On balance, one of these things that speaks well for Garraty's book is how it balances the good and the bad. What "Everybody Should Know About American History" covers the entire spectrum and no matter how much you already know, or think you know, you will learn a thing or too. Yes, the title is pure hyperbole, but given the increasingly narrow focus on most high school history textbooks this is an excellent supplemental text that gives teachers some concise, pertinent facts to throw into each and every unit throughout the year.


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