Customer Reviews

A History of the United States: Second Edition

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When you read the book you get general idea of the history of the USA. It's not too detailed (for example, there is very little knowledge of certain presidents and events)but it covers all the important issues well. There is some amount of statistics but I believe they just emphesize the facts presented.
Only minus comes from the "aftermath" of 9/11. It seemed to convict the Clinton administration for causing the September attack and left other factors, such as, Bush senior and his administration (and the Gulf war) with little thought.
I didn't also like the particular sentence of how CIA should have involved more deeply in the observation of other countries:
"Sometimes, nations need to play dirty tricks."
But I guess it can be difficult to be objective when you live in the USA and have experienced a catastrophy such as 9/11. Still, as an European myself, I was quite dissapointed with the end. The end bothers me a bit but at least it gives me an alternative perspective to think about.

Building upon what was mentioned before, this presents a good foundation of US History. I found it to be best up until the turn of the century, with excellent use of different approaches to explaining to the reader what was going on during this pediod of time (ex: cultural, geographical, financial, societal influences on the population). Hoewever, I find it to be not only lacking in important detail during the 20th century, it becomes rediculously opinionated the more recent in time you travel. Additionally, I feel that he becomes verbose in unimportant areas while skipping over peiods and details that might better inform the reader. Overall, enjoyable, but especially up to 1900 or so.