And, of course, my own specialty fields of European Intellectual History (18th/19th centuries), American Intellectual History, and Philosophy of History are pretty much gone. The study of Modern Europe certainly doesn't mean what it used to.
It's amazing. There are good specialized books published in the last 30-40 years, but not much (yours excepted) in surveys. The newer editions of the essential text on Modern Europe, the R.R. Palmer, et. al. A History of the Modern World are not as good (IMHO) as the 1970 edition I still have. For a US survey, there are really on a couple of choices: your Patriot's History, the Morison, Commager and Leuchtenburg (they of the last generation of solid liberal scholars) The Growth of the American Republic, which I think is a little more in depth and represents the 'consensus' of the generation that taught us, or, maybe, with reservations, Bob Kelly's survey, which is a bit stronger on intellectual history but otherwise veers a bit squishy left.
I think someone wanting a solid knowledge of history today is probably better served with the courses on DVD or CD from The Teaching Company from the local library, than they would be in most college or university history departments. Our town library has several dozens of them, I've probably listened to 25-30 courses over the past 5 years on everything from Ancient Egypt through the Greeks and Romans (philosophy, literature, and history) through the First World War. Some of the bibliographies are good enough that between the lectures and the suggested readings, they're really pretty close to being equivalent to a decent upper division course on the old UCSB model of 1-2 books a week for a quarter course.
I'm at work on a "big" project that is essentially a "Patriot's History of the Modern World." Probably 60% finished.