Customer Reviews

The American Century

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

While Jenning's "The Century" book has some interesting stories, it's written like a script for a news report, i.e. uninformative sound bites. In contrast, "The American Century" is much better written, and has its own set of insights not covered in Jenning's book. They may complement each other, but if you must have one, this book is much better.

This is a real tour-de-force in terms of the extensive material it covers with wonderful text and pictures. I had the opportunity to personally interview the author, Harold Evans, for our website. Despite its incredible volume and depth, it is accessible to the reader because it is written almost as if it were a series of magazine articles taking you through 100 years of US history. For many of our readers on the homeschoolzone, each of the bite-size pieces would make a wonderful jumping off point for a discussion or a research report for their children. I would strongly recommend this book not only for your children, but for yourself. As the author put it, "This is History for Browsers," and I most certainly agree with that and am continuing to pick the book up and browse.

Don't let the "coffee book table" size or look of the book fool you; "The American Century" is a very well written and very well thought out book. Its central thesis: Through political, economic, and social changes, the promise of American democracy (along with freedom, equality, and justice) slowly became a reality for all Americans.

Some criticisms leveled at this book are quite off the mark. One reader slammed Evans for imposing his own views and opinions on the past and thus committing a "cardinal sin." Ridiculous. No history is free of judgement or opinions. Whether it is in an overt statement or how the facts are presented, history is never impartial or neutral. Another criticism is that the book is a product of leftist revisionism. Perhaps, but a closer reading reveals otherwise. Evans, for instance, claimed that Ronald Reagan was "no racist" despite the fact he opened his 1980 campaign in the Deep South in the town where the three civil rights workers were murdered. He was also quite easy on Richard Nixon, describing his handling of the Alger Hiss case as "fair" and dismissing any notions that Watergate was part of some Oliver Stone-esqe conspiracy that somehow involved JFK's assassination.

The pictures alone make this book a good buy. I would recommend this book to anyone who has a solid grounding in American history but would like to get a different perspective.

This book started well but became more and more of a labor to finish - the left-leaning perspective of the author was more pronounced as the book moved along. Overall, an enjoyable read, however I'd recommend A History of the American People by Paul Johnson for those interested in a little more depth.

This is a book that every American must have as a reference in their home. It is fast interesting reading that covers many relevant topics from our rich history. Anyone interested in history and America's impact on the rest of the world should read this book. This book should be made mandatory reading for all American history courses. If only more people could write in the crisp accurate style of Mr. Evans! Well done.

This book truly surprised me. I expected a "coffee table" book full of pictures with not much content. What I found instead,are recounts of our history often buried. History that was-and still is- embarrassing for us. Harold Evans has done his research not by reading about history, but by traveling the country talking with and even living with the people that are the product of our actions throughout this century. I commend him. He has opened our eyes to many truths, like them or not.

The authors cover many of the events that occurred during the timeframe so I believe you can get some decent background info from the book. However, it is very political and seems to blame the country for not adopting a social welfare state much sooner. In many areas, it is too superficial and quickly concludes "where was a government program to cure these ills of history" and doesn't really explore the causes of problems. Case in point, American farmers fed the world during WW-1 as European agriculture was in shambles. That allowed American farmers to enjoy strong prices and high incomes in the war years. But in the 1920s, the European farmers were back and the market suffered from classic oversupply and farm incomes declined. The authors don't report that or even classify the war years as an anomoly for farmers. Instead, they focus on the unfairness that the farmers didn't participate to the same degree in the prosperity of the 1920s. The tone gets very upset with thoughts that the federal government should have prevented this like our wonderful never-ending farm programs of today that have us subsidizing the growth of tobacco and mohair wool. In other areas, the book is wrong. For example, it traces the formation of the Federal Reserve System to JP Morgan's inability to stem the bank failures and outflow of gold in the Panic of 1907. Actually, Morgan was very successful in rescuing the powerless federal government and raising gold in Europe to prop up our banks. The Federal Reserve System arose as the government was worried about having one private man being able to wield so much financial power. All in all, the historical background is there and is a good primer, but be prepared to listen to a lecture of what is fair and right and what is not.

You don't really need to read "The American Century" in any particular order. It's the perfect book to play "history roulette" with; on a lazy Sunday when you're sitting by your coffee table, open it at random and you can learn about, say, the 1954 US-supported coup in Guatemala, or the "Accidental Empire" the U.S. amassed after the Spanish-American War, or the struggles between John D. Rockefeller's companies and unionizing miners, or the race riots that gutted Detroit in 1967. Or, better yet, skip the coffee table and put a copy atop your toilet tank--while it's a great living room book, it's an even better bathroom book. Not only can you read it in any order, you can read a lot or a little without feeling short-changed, and you will invariably feel better for having done so. When nature calls, this book will make you look forward to answering.

Even better than its structure, though, is its author's clear and easy prose style, and even better than that is his general refusal to write an ideological tome like, say, Howard Zinn's "People's History of the United States." Harold Evans doesn't buy all the conventional wisdom of the left or the right. When writing about the labor movement, for instance, he shows the excesses and the violence of the "company goon" days of the early 1900s, but he also looks favorably on Reagan's decision to fire striking air traffic controllers in 1981. Or when looking at anti-communism in the 1950s, he decries the excesses of McCarthyism but also says that Nixon was fair in his prosecution of Alger Hiss, and that Julius Rosenberg (cause celebre of the American Left) was, in fact, a Soviet spy.

Evans intersperses the book with great little character sketches about the Presidents who served during these years. F.D.R and T.R., Wilson and Nixon: all come to life with brief vignettes and quotes describing their personalities and their various paths to power.

It's not a perfect book--Evans buys too many of the standard journalistic mantras about, say, the Reagan tax cuts, and his coverage of corporate America slacks towards the end of the book, and he completely neglects to mention the Challenger explosion, one of the landmark events of the 1980s. But it is a great book, an intellectual swimming pool of sorts--you can hop in for a quick dip or dive in for hours of mental exercise. If you're anything like me, you'll find yourself reading and re-reading it, getting a great overview of a century of American successes and excesses--and enjoying yourself all the while.

I like Historical Reference texts and this is quite different - in its analysis of the major events of 1889 through 1989 the second century of the USA. The book makes it quite clear that the "good old days" of the late nineteenth century and the first half of this century were filled with social upheaval and injustice as well as great happenings in the development of the Republic. This book was put together from Harold Evan's perspective as an immigrant to the USA and a person who understands how the Constitution creates a tapestry that weaves all the ethnic cultures - and their unique issues and problems - into our national culture. This is an excellent book.

If I were only allowed to take one book to a desert island, this would be the one. And I haven't even read it all yet.

Why do I make such a claim? Firstly because it is a superb book for dipping into -- if you just want a 10-minute background on any significant event in America's 20th century, you'll find it here. But you'll probably find yourself intrigued by the surrounding articles and spending much more than the 10 minutes you promised yourself.

Secondly because the photos and cartoons are superbly well-chosen.

And thirdly because the writing is also superb. For example, I've just finished the article on the My Lai massacre, in which Harold Evans describes the killings, the investigations, the cover-ups and the trials in wonderful journalistic prose, with few adjectives. He ends by mentioning that the only soldier found guilty, William Calley, was released after three years and got a job working in his father-in-law's Chicago jewellery shop selling brooches. Such a mundane finale serves as a wondeful contrast to the atrocities he committed earlier in Vietnam.

Modern American history fascinates me. As a former child of the sixties who has visited but never lived in the USA, I guess American products and culture have had a drip-drip effect on my life. I've also spent my entire adult life working for the UK subsidiary of a US corporation, so the differences in the American mentality have had a profound impact on the management style I am subject to. I can't say that I fully understand these differences, but this is the book with the greatest promise to explain their historical origins.

One minor note: this was written in the 1990s, i.e. before the end of the century in question, so don't expect it to make any mention of Dubya or 9/11, or to offer the same degree of hindsight on the Clinton years that it provides on all the earlier presidents.

A fantastic book. If there is any justice, it should never go out of print. But you'll have to buy it to ensure its survival!