6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Loaded with Interesting Facts but a bit of a Lightweight, June 11, 2007
This review is from: The Timetables of American History (Paperback)
For a light read this book is ok, and one can get lost reading it to pass the time. Those looking for a bit more will be disappointed. The facts are listed by year, but the actual date of the event is not given. A big draw back to me. The facts they picked were interresting, but I thought they would have included other events, but one can find this in any book on history. For a general read, this book is fine. For a history reference book, you'll need to look else where.
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10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Not recommended for comprehensive or detailed histories., November 23, 2008
This review is from: The Timetables of American History (Paperback)
I picked up this history as a review aid for my graduate comprehensive exams. A good timetable can be useful for basic inclusion of terms. This however, is not a good timeline on any level. At best, it commits a few oversights; at worst, it will lead students astray and cause a very outdated education in history.
Even people who rail against political correctness can acknowledge that ethnic minorities and women have contributed in the same spheres as men throughout American history. Yet, the few contributions of women and ethnic minorities in this timeline are usually relegated to the "Miscellaneous" category. This is not always so; but if the accomplishments of male military veterans are placed in "History and Politics," why are female military veterans from the same year placed in "Miscellaneous"? Why is the 1983 apology for Japanese-American internment included, but the actual internment and Roosevelt's order are missing entirely? When American Indians are allowed to enter the dialogue, it is only by their interaction with whites - and even then, it is mostly as an object of annihilation. When Amerindians are fighting whites, they are "on the warpath," a troubling racist term - which I was ready to dismiss as merely antiquated until I saw the many references to "a black" achieving some office, which seemed also odd to me.
References to women's and minority history is also poorly-researched. Did Seneca Falls take place in 1848, or 1850? The book lists both, but neither are in the index. Why no mention of the term "feme covert," which might help students remember why early colonial women were disenfranchised? Were Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, and Cesar Chavez AWOL when it came time to mention their enormous contributions? Of course, white abolitionist and agricultural movements are mentioned copiously. Amendments to the Constitution get to be in the History and Politics section - except the Nineteenth, which is "miscellaneous." Because it gives women the right to vote, it is in the same category as Jim Thorpe and horse racing.
I do not believe a historian can in good conscience commit these grievous errors. And that is just it: This book was not written or updated by historians, nor was it peer-reviewed by other historians. I do not say that the layperson or the journalist is incapable of writing a good history, I find lay histories invaluable to my work. But a competent scholarly awareness of history, whether undertaken formally or informally, should be a prerequisite for a book calling itself a reference work. If the authors and updaters are claiming the responsible exercise of history, they do not display it, and this book could have used a great deal of review before deciding that Alfred Hitchcock merited 7 separate entries, while Sacagawea deserves none at all.
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12 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Timetables of American History, updated edition, June 10, 2000
A wonderfully concise look at American History in respect to other happenings around the globe. I read this book at our local library and was so impressed with it that I decided to order it from Amazon.com!
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