Liberty And Slavery

[ewx]

The Penguin History Of The USA, Hugh Brogan, ISBN 014025255X

This book covers the history of the USA from prehistory to the end of the 80s, though the real detail starts with European colonization, giving about 400 years to cover in 700 pages.

The writing is clear and witty and the author does not hesitate to pass judgement on various events and structures. He regularly slips into the first person and gives his own opinion, giving the book a pleasant chatty feel. (If you prefer your history books to be dusty tomes, avoid this one like the plague.)

I would complain that, despite an evident appreciation of the value of numbers, there is an absence of tabulated statistics (or better, graphs) in this book. It is better supplied with maps though perhaps more detailed ones would not go amiss.

Anyway I took quite a while to read this but it made for an interesting background to a month or two, and has left me with a much better feeling for how the US has developed.

---

More book reviews

Comments

[gerald_duck]

Mmm. Could be interesting. I wonder how it compares with Bill Bryson's Made in America, which is my favourite of the various books I've read about America's history. It's far from compendious or comprehensive, but it provides a huge number of fascinating facts to flesh out one's existing knowledge of the subject.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I read The Lost Continent and found it getting a bit tiring towards then end, and haven't revisited Bryson since...

Dead Presidents

[addedentry.livejournal.com]

Thank you: this has been on my shelves for two years but it's only now that I'm about to visit the US that I've had the determination to read it. A responsible tourist should make efforts to understand the sensitive local culture on which they intrude. Like LA will notice.

For a one-volume history it manages not to give the impression of cantering through the narrative, perhaps because the author is happy to pick up a thread at the expense of chronology. I got on well with Brogan's style, his willingness to descend from objectivity compensating for often overextended sentences. As well as more maps I'd have welcomed a list of presidents and their parties.

(Bound and Gagged remains on our unread lists.)