Customer Reviews

Witness to America: An Illustrated Documentary History of the United States from the Revolution to Today

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

 

 

This is not a book to read cover to cover, rather I found it entertaining to pick a section almost at random. Read about log cabin construction on the Ohio frontier. Or Grant's own recollection of Lee's surrender. Or of T Roosevelt's family horse play (literally) in the White House. For those of us who do not get a chance to view original material, this book is fun.

This book is great for history and social studies teachers. The book is broken into small snipets of history that are the perfect length for one lesson. In a time when textbooks give only partial views on history slanted towards the views of the editors and publishers of the textbook, this is a refeshing use of primary source material. Ambrose and Brinkley let historic figures speak for themselves.

When we learn of history, either that of the United States or the world, we more often than not hear it in the voice of someone who happens to have a degree in history and was born tens, hundreds, or even thousands of years after the events described in their work. Witness is a unique opportunity to see history through history's eyes. The pieces chosen necessarily reflect upon the times we live in now, but their meanings are left to the readers to ultimately determine for themselves. Ambrose and Brinkley provide a collection that should be passed down to succeeding generations of Americans so that they may have a glimpse of where Americans have been and where they may chose to go in the future.

This 2010 revised edition is not in the same format as that mentioned in some earlier reviews (coffee table book with CD). Rather this book is 610 pages of text and index with hundreds of brief articles written by the participants in the events which have shaped the United States, from the American Revolution to President Barack Obama's "A More Perfect Union," speech in Philadelphia on March 18, 2008. Some of the narrators are famous; others not. Some, like presidents, shaped the events they describe; others represent the bystander/observer who was "there." The result is a good mix of points of view. Anyone else who begins such an audacious project from scratch would come up with a different collection of documents that reflects the editor's interests. This book emphasizes history's social, political, and military aspects, with less coverage of such topics as scientific and economic developments. It is ideally suited to random browsing but also can be used to support teaching or other directed purposes.

Witness to America is a very unique book in that it is an assortment of individual snapshots to various points in our history and gives entertaining and brief essays on each snapshot. This is definatly a book you could read for a few minutes of borrowed time and then put back down, if you had to. I originally checked this book out at the local library because as a fan of Stephen Ambrose's books I found it interesting. After renewing it twice because I hated to part with it, I knew I had to buy a copy for my bookshelf. This is a great book and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

You have to understand what this book is before you can decide whether it will be of use to you. It is not a comprehensive history of the United States as told by Stephen Ambrose and Douglass Brinkley. Rather, it is a collection of 170 articles or vignettes on different, mostly well-known, events in American History. These articles are writings contemporaneous with the events described.

There are also many illustrations and photographs and a really interesting audio CD with a number of selections dramatically recreated and some of them audio with the actual participants.

Stephen Ambrose and Douglass Brinkley have based their text on previous edition done by Henry Steele Commager and Allan Nevins. Because these are selections and usually only one perspective is given of each event (editors always have to balance sweep and perspective with limited space), the viewpoints presented may differ with your own. However, I find the value of contemporary perspective quite valuable - especially in teaching my children. I can balance any bias I see with other books and by delving more deeply into the event described. But these articles make a great jumping off point.

There is a bibliography providing the sources of each article, but there is not an index. Because of the nature of this book, the table of contents and the bibliography are probably enough.

I've been a huge Stephen Ambrose fan since reading his biography of Nixon years ago. This book dispays Ambrose's flair for research, and ability to make the past come alive. This time, however, rather than using his own prose to set the scene, he has compiled a collection of accounts from people who were there. It's not textbook history, and it doesn't always present events from an objective view, but it is nevertheless an effective and fascinating read.

I love the way he lets people who were present tell the story. It is very enlightening, not your normal text book history. It is a must read for anyone with an open mind.

Maybe you've seen it in the bookstores: a coffee-table sized book, almost 600 pages long, with an accompanying CD-ROM of speeches and other recordings. A great gift for an American history buff? Don't be fooled. I found it at the library and it turned out to be a huge disappointment. It has little to say and almost no visual impact compared to a book like "The American Century." Obviously at this point in time, Stephen Ambrose is coasting on his reputation.

This is an interesting book because of its use of primary sources. Most history text books leave them to the side and others clumsily attempt to weave them in, but Ambrose and Brinkley fit them in nicely and use them to tell the story. It is an interesting read.