American Foreign Relations: A History, Brief Edition, Volume 2, Since 1895 (v. 2) [Paperback]

Thomas Paterson (Author), J. Garry Clifford (Author), Shane J. Maddock (Author), Deborah Kisatsky (Author), Kenneth Hagan (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Wadsworth Publishing; 1 edition (October 3, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618382224
• ISBN-13: 978-0618382224
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #275,737 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Decent, yet quite biased, April 27, 2009

By 

Adam Griffith (New Wilmington, PA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: American Foreign Relations: A History, Brief Edition, Volume 2, Since 1895 (v. 2) (Paperback)

I was assigned this book as a primary text book for a class on U.S. foreign relations. It was the professor's first time using the book, and she encouraged and participated in a critique of the book. Most of this comes from my own opinion, but there is also some content from our class discussions. It does a decent job summing up the historical context of the various foreign policy actions undertaken by the US, as well as the reactions to certain policy decisions by nations and people involved. Also, I personally enjoyed the illustrations, they were entertaining and gave certain color to the book and important historical figures. I appreciated the reactions to American Policy, especially from the third world.

However, there is some bad. The chapters are broken up by region, making it difficult to chronologize historical events. The authors are quite biased to the left, not unusual for history textbooks, but at times quite overt in this one. The authors, obiviously for entertainment purposes, try to add shocking quotes, often containing profanity (specifically F***), which adds little to the historical understanding of the subject matter. Our class, which had a substantial vocal conservative section, noted that the forign policy of Wilson, FDR, Carter, Kennedy, and Clinton were glossed over and not critiqued very much, while Nixon, Reagan and G.W. Bush were heavily critiqued. Also, there were a few too many fat jokes about Taft, which got tiresome. Yes, he got stuck in his bathtub, but how many times does his rotund nature need to be lampooned. Not so good for a history class. Also, no footnotes were provided, which would have been benificial to my own historical study, but was certainly not the worst thing in the world. Overall, it is an ok text for a semester class, but cannot be used alone.