Looking to buy good history books. Especially American history. Any suggestions? (Vanity, I suppose)

11-27-02 | None

[Green Knight]

Alright, I've been meaning to buy a history book with detailed American history, but I'm leary of spending money on a Politically Correct piece of crud. So can you folks help me out, here?

I'd like A) A book which focuses specifically not only on the USA, but on the history that led up the founding of the United States, and B) A detailed look at world history (Being only one book, I can't imagine it'd be all that detailed). I'd also like C) A book detailing World War II.

Appreciate any and all help folks. Thanks.

[stainlessbanner]

Check out this thread: The South and Southern History

Also, Paul Kennedy's Rise and Fall of Great Powers.

[RLK]

Some how I doubt that most 8th graders were studying calculus let alone abstact algebra or numeric analysis in th 1800 let alone fourier analysis or back projection analysis.

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Unless a Ph.D. is in engineering or other physical sciences, damned few of them have had calculus.

[abner]

A book that I recommend to everyone is 'Life and Death in Shanghai' by Nien Cheng. It isn't American history but a book about the Cultural Revolution in China. It is about China, but is eerily similiar to what is happening here now.

Terrifying...

[RLK]

I know this topic is about books, but HBO's production of Band of Brothers was the best damned miniseries ever produced for television, and is now out on DVD at Wal-Mart for $85.

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I concur. It is very good as is We Were Soldiers.

[Torie]

For a very readable book on the French and Indian War, and how it was the crucible for the American revolutionary mindset (which is one of its primary focuses), this book is the ticket. It also fills in a gap in American history for most of us. It should be included in any corpus of books on American history for the layperson IMO.

[Torie]

Are you aware of any serious and readable book on the US in the 17th century and early 18th century? We seem to zip from the Pilgrims to the French and Canadian War without passing go. I read somewhere that the wars in the late 1600's attending the Glorious Revolution wiped out a higher percentage of the US population than at any time since.

[x]

"Albion's Seed" by David Fischer is an excellent look at four founding cultures (Puritans, Quakers, Tidewater Cavaliers and Backcountry Scots-Irish). Fisher covers all of US history, but his emphasis is on the colonial period. It's a must read, and a great place to start.

Kevin Phillips wrote a similar book on the English Civil War, the American Revolution and the American Civil War as reenactments of the same drama. I'm not sure I agree but it looked interesting.

The Colonial period does seem to be slighted by historians. In the 1940s and 1950s Perry Miller won great fame as a scholar of the Puritan period, though his books may be too involved for some. Lately the period has been attracting much interest because of the multicultural White Black Red angle. Richard Hofstadter and Gary Nash wrote on the period, but I'm not sure how readable or interesting their books would be for most readers.

Watching Ken or Ric Burns's New York City Documentary on PBS was fascinating, especially the colonial period. The book of the program would probably be of interest to many people. The civic disturbances of early 18th century New York were precursors of the revolution.

I've also heard that King Phillip's War in 17th century New England involved higher casualties on a percentage basis than other American wars. And there were other Indian wars at about the same time. There is a recent book on the subject. I don't know how good it is. It looks like a small press book. It fascinated me because my parents had plenty of stories about that war, but it may not be so interesting to those who don't have associations with the area.

And, though I haven't read this book, 1676: The End of American Independence, it certainly does have a catchy title.

[farmfriend]

Fourth Turning

Strauss and Howe base this vision on a provocative theory of American history as a series of recurring 80- to 100-year cycles. Each cycle has four "turnings"-a High, an Awakening, an Unraveling, and a Crisis. The authors locate today's America as midway through an Unraveling, roughly a decade away from the next Crisis (or Fourth Turning). And they recommend ways Americans can prepare for what's ahead, as a nation and as individuals.

This is not a tinfoil hat book but a serious look at the cycles that run through our history based on studies of 500 years of history by 2 historians.

[freebilly]

Robert Leckie has a series of excellent books

The Wars of America by Leckie is an excellent resource book....

[Pietro]

You can try "http://www.abebooks.com/" and put in Keyword American History, or any particular period and bring up a goodly number of titles. You can also query the seller about the condition or topic of a particular title prior to purchasing.

Disclaimer; I sell books on ABE. I've had good luck w/ sellers and buyers there. No BS.

[PhilipFreneau]

Get "The Roosevelt Myth", by John T. Flynn, if you can find it. Published initially in 1948 by The Devin-Adair Company of New York, it is an insider's look at the corruption and traitorous activities of FDR and Eleanor. My copy is a 1956 revision.

[RLK]

Just quickly looking at the Masters Degree program in math shows that ...

Jackass, how many people at universities take masters or doctorates in Math? When I was on staff at the University of Maryland which had 35,000 students we graduated 27 undergraduate electrical engineers and fewer math students.

[RLK]

You can try "http://www.abebooks.com/"

My God, what a place! I found copies of Wheeler and Sebastian Peter Grossman there. It's better than Allibris.

[Torie]

Thanks so much for the reply. I will nose around.

[RLK]

You are looking for a way out of this and you won't get it from me. You damned well know know what I was saying. Don't try to distort it. You are running it into the ground.

[RLK]

PS. How many 8th graders in 1850 were studying multivariate calculus?

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How many average Ph.D.s today know squat about multivariate calculus? Most are math illiterate.