Customer Reviews

Out of Many, Volume 1 (6th Edition)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I teach U.S. History Survey courses, and after a quick preview of the text I elected to adopt the volumes for both of my courses. Unfortunately, whoever proofed the text did very shoddy work. Initially I tried moving from the 5th to 6th edition, but the 6th is worse than the 5th.

I now spend the first ten to fifteen minutes of my class time explaining errors that confuse my students. For example, the statistics in the text and in the captions and margin "key terms" definitions often mismatch, sometimes the colors in the maps are the opposite of the key, some paragraphs seem to skip key sentences (leaping from one topic to the last sentence of some historical anecdote) and my personal favorite, "Cotton is note the consistent capitalization King" (this should read "Cotton is King -- an obvious mistake in copyediting).

Next semester (and for the future thirty years I expect to teach) I will go with a publishing house that doesn't confuse my students with unprofessional errors in the text.

It is a very good book for people who are interested in early American history. Our teacher uses this book as a cours material and so far I am totally satisfied with this book, I like all the illustrations, maps and interesting, but often unfortunately difficult, vocabulary.

I have read the entire book, and I only did so because I had to for a class. This book is completely biased against, you guessed it, the evil white rich man and America in general. Granted, history isn't always pretty; people aren't always nice. Nonetheless, the authors choose to judge the actions of 17th and 18th Century people by the values of today. It irritates me to no end to see this used as a teaching tool.

The edition is also concise and lacking in any in-depth explanation of key historical issues. To compound this, however, the authors felt it more important to use up their valuable word count on espousing their left-wing hatred of the U.S. (they actually spend space discussing Ghandi at one point, who won't be around for another 100 years) instead of expanding on historical facts relevant to the period being studied.

If you need to deprogram after the experience. I suggest reading, A Patriot's History of the United States, by Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen. This book was written by a couple of people who think the United States, as far as countries go, ain't all that bad.

I also suggest reading the two together, to balance out the indoctrination of "Out of Many."

I give it one star as I can't rate it any lower.

Such subjective opinion has no place in a history text.

This was the required text for my college U.S. history class. In my opinion the information throughout the book is too concise. There seems to be an anti white American bias throughout the text that could have been toned down a bit.

The book does offer many informative and appropriate visual aids to enhance the material. I like the many featured artworks from specific periods. "Out of Many" begins its historical account with the migrations of Asian peoples into North America unlike many U.S. histories that begin with the discovery of the New World or the beginning of the Revolution.

Purchase this book for its pre-Columbus material, but you may want to consult a more detailed history to supplement the lack of elaboration.

I ordered a used textbook from this user, and the quality was excellent. There is really no indication that this book has been used, it's it great condition. It arrived on time, and everything went smooth.

This book was in perfect condition when I received it the seller did a wonderful job packaging it. I highly recommend this vendor.

I ordered a text book from Curtis. I have had no communicaion and assume I will not see my order. Amazon is of no help either. Last time I do business with either.