Review (PDF) America: A Narrative History (Brief Ninth Edition) (Vol. 2)
A book students love, in a more concise format. America has sold more than 1.8 million copies over the past eight editions because it’s a book that students enjoy reading. Effective storytelling, colorful anecdotes, and biographical sketches make the narrative absorbing and the material more memorable. The Brief Ninth Edition is 20% shorter, and includes refreshed and updated coverage of African American history, and has been streamlined from 37 to 34 chapters.
Paperback: 832 pages
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 9 edition (November 13, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0393912671
ISBN-13: 978-0393912678
Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 1 x 9.3 inches
Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (341 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #49,812 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #207 in Books > Textbooks > Humanities > History > United States #399 in Books > History > Historical Study & Educational Resources #1893 in Books > History > Americas > United States
I first encountered the Tindall/Shi American history books while a student in college. As a history major, I found that it was almost a requirement for history books to be boring. That is just not the case with this one. I would be lying if I said that there weren't parts of this book that drag, but there are parts of American history that just aren't too terribly interesting.By and large, this narrative reads like a good novel. You are intrigued by the characters and events that shaped U.S. history, much as you would be by any number of fictional characters. And yet the narrative still manages to be detailed without overwhelming the reader too often, a nearly impossible task for history books.The Volume One that I own is the Third Edition, and covers America's pre-colonial beginnings up through Reconstruction. I have found it to be a handy resource over the years with its recountings, not to mention the various charts and documents contained within the appendix. I doubt much has changed in subsequent editions, since the history of that era is pretty well established.
Tindall, in his 5th edition of this superb text, provides a quintessential guide to American history. Useful for late High School and underclassmen University courses in United States History, Tindall offers plenty of "raw" history. Analytical comment is kept to a minimum, to allow the reader or student to explore on his or her own. One hopes that the lack of primary sources or analytical material in Tindall's text will lead readers to seek out other sources before drawing their own conclusions.Tindall and his co-author, David Shi, do NOT provide a one-stop, all-you-need-to-know guide to US history. Instead, they provide the framework around which one can begin to shape one's own opinions. As one who studied from Tindall as a student and now teaches from Tindall in a private school, I applaud his successful effort once again.
I enjoyed this book. American history as a whole is filled with books that tell a very inaccurate story of the American past and try to gloss over our often gruesome and disappointing history. This book gives true accounts of the things most Americans like to pretend never happened. It's a much more honest approach to our past and our futures than many other history books out there.
This is the best history textbook that I have used to date. It is entirely in narrative form and reads more like a novel than a textbook. The coverage of material is excellent and the authors steer clear of any major political bias. If there is any area to find fault, it would be that some events or people are practically glossed over. However, this is understandable for a book that attempts to cover everything from pre-colonization to current times in less than 1500 pages. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in history, even to read outside the classroom setting.
This is the textbook used by my AP US history class, and it is actually rather interesting. It is in depth (it covers everything from pre-Columbus to today's political/social scene), well-written, and has sometimes useful chapter overview sections at the beginning and end of each chapter. The information contained is pretty liberal, which improves coverage of political scams and scandals, women, minorities, and the arts. However, sometimes I wish it was a little more neutral in its outlook; conservative political groups are often portrayed as "yuckier" than liberal groups. Still, I think that this book is a good resource that tells some of the grittier details of American history.
I'm a student at BSU and although I'm a history major I recognize that not all aspects of history are exciting or involving, but I was really taken aback by how much I enjoyed this book. The word "Narrative" is the key here, textbooks just don't have the same storytelling approach that books like this have. You'll laugh (a lot) and you'll cry with this book, but more importantly you'll learn a lot and gain an appreciation for what our founding fathers, the Natives, and the other world powers went through during this time. Buy this book, you won't be disappointed, but try and buy a used copy and save yourself a lot of money. To compliment this book I highly reccomend "Patriots, The Men who Started the Revolutionary War".
I purchased this book for backup information as I prepared to take the US History I CLEP exam. It was used in conjunction with Barron's EZ 101 American History to 1877 and REA CLEP US History I.This book is far better than any other text book that I considered simply because it addressed all of the important topics and is so well written that I often forgot I was reading a "text book". Because I needed to take the exam ASAP for my RN-MSN program, I did not have time to read this book cover to cover but now that the exam is over, I will be reading it from beginning to end just for the sheer enjoyment of it. It is truly history at its best.
Got this for American History II after using the first volume for Amer History I last summer. The text is very readable and is more like a story than a textbook. It seems like a more linear presentation, in that the story flows from one thing to another almost seemlessly rather than what I'm used to, which is choppy (HERE is the Civil War, HERE is the Industrial Revolution,...) and it ties the events together so you can see the relationship between them. I find it very engaging and am learning a lot. Very cool book.
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