Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 139
 Beware of distortions contained in the reviews February 13, 2010
A Thinking Man (San Francisco, CA)
78 out of 104 found this review helpful
A lot of negative reviews here claim that important, but inconvenient, facts are omitted in this book, such as Iran-Contra affair. This is to prove that the book has a "Republican' bias. One of the reviewers, for example, supposedly a history teacher, named Pentz says:"[the book] Does Not Even Make Mention Of IRAN-CONTRA!" (sic)
The search function reveals that IRAN-CONTRA IS MENTIONED TWICE (using caps so the old lib professor can see it) on pages 721 and 761. Two-thirds of page 761 is devoted to the affair starting with: "A more serious reverse for the Reagan agenda came in November 1986 [...]" Even sounds pretty critical of Reagan...
Check for yourself. Page 761 is available for viewing here on Amazon. (God Bless Amazon and its innovation, BTW)
Now, how can you believe a word of the rest of Pentz' story about the exchange he allegedly had with Prof. Schweikart, the author of this book? Pentz states: "I asked about this conspicuous omission and was told that he [Schweikart] didn't think IRAN-CONTRA was significant enough to make it into print." And this liar teaches our students?? Teaches them how to "detect bias"?! What is going on in this country?
A more general comment: I have been reading Amazon reviews for a long time now. Most of the one-star reviews that are critical of "conservative" (however you define it) books reveal complete lack of familiarity with the book or the arguments contained within it. A LOT of them are one to two sentences in length. They bring down the ratings but contribute nothing to the conversation.
Read this book. After years of liberal lies and distortions, it's your civic duty.
Great reading! March 3, 2010
W. Cox (Columbus, OH USA)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
I haven't been through the whole book yet (really long), but what I have read is very insightful and detailed. I have enjoyed it so far.
Outstanding Compendium December 7, 2008
JordanJasper
32 out of 42 found this review helpful
Whether one is conservative, liberal, or somewhere in the lazy, hazy "middle," this book is an outstanding and very necessary addition to the wealth of contemporary U.S. historical surveys. While the authors (both university professors with doctorates) are very clear that they espouse conservative political viewpoints, their scholarship is not skewed, by any means. On the contrary, their conservative foundation seems to steer them in a direction based far more upon direct assessment of historical facts and far less upon the egregiously interpretative latitudes so often taken by leftist and revisionist historians. The result is a balanced survey that springs from a healthy, sober admiration for the American "identity," without a blind eye to America's faults...or to its great successes! How refeshing. Obviously, the authors' delineation and assessment of the New Deal, for example, will meet with disdain from dreamy leftist historians, but the professors again tackle this moment in US history within the sphere of the factual, rather than the interpretative. The work is scrupulously well-documented; citations abound and are appropriate in frequency for a book of this scope. Moreover, the work is eminently well-written--it steadily navigates a tightrope upon which the academic and the accessible are balanced simultaneously for the modern reader, without ever falling into the deathly middle-ground that can sometimes bog-down ambitious tomes of this sort. Buy it for yourself or a loved one and enjoyably refresh the brain cells, particularly at this current, crucial juncture in our history. The book is a "must" for any conservative library, of course, but it's so well-delineated and balanced that historians of any slant would be able to utilize it to significant and compelling effect. That's the great thing about the truth.
Comments from a College History Professor and former High School Teacher July 9, 2005
Author in North Carolina (North Carolina)
77 out of 104 found this review helpful
I've been in the history business for over thirty years. Starting as an "educator" at the middle school and high school level. Though in short order I changed my own definition of self, saying I was a history teacher fighting against "educators" who were supremely ignorant when it came to real content knowledge of their subjects. I finally left secondary ed in disgust in the late 1980s, went back full time to grad school, got a Ph.D. in American History and went into the college classroom where at least, at my small private school, I still have intellectual freedom. I've also published a number of books on a national level, and that is how I first met one of the authors of this work when he commented on my latest book.
I think I therefore have a good foundation to comment here and my comment is. . .I wish across the last thirty years I had a book like this to use in my classrooms!
My own education was influenced by Beard and others like him when I was a student, and as a new teacher I taught the myths of a rather leftist perspective of our national epic. But as I matured and learned more I finally abandoned all textbook use in disgust. Anyone conversant on the subject knows my reasons, written by committees, written with a very clear bias to political correctness, outright distortions and numerous factual errors, written at times with a barely concealed disdain for our nation's story. It is made worst by alleged critics and commentators such as Loewen with his tirade "Lies my Teachers Told Me," which is riddled with factual errors and deliberate distortions, and pushes the rhetoric even further to the Left while claiming to be about getting the story right.
This book, however, is like a wind stirring up after a dark storm of bias and ignorance, which tries to set the record straight on so many points. For the first time I have a history book that calls into doubt the wisdom of FDR's New Deal, the myth that he ended the Depression (when in reality the punitive taxes of up to 90% and government interference made it worst), and spawned the real beginnings of run away government.
Their take on the anti war movement in the 1960s is absolutely scathing, and truthful. I was there and personally witnessed several of the events described. . . how the anti-war movement on college campuses was not an "enlightened" desire for peace, but rather a rampage gone wild, adroitly engineered by a small well trained cadre of ultra-leftists, a phenomena that still haunts our higher education system today, and has produced a generation of lies and text book distortions as well.
I could cite a dozen more examples from their book that left me grinning with delight, that the truth was finally out there to read again. My only criticism, some minor factual errors, but relatively few when compared to standard textbooks, and for a monumental work of this length.
I know the author's intent was simply to write an American history for the general public and do not want it type cast as a "textbook," and I go along with that. But, I will nevertheless forcefully recommend it as a textbook. . .and that recommendation comes from a college professor, with years experience in secondary education and for several years, even taught history teacher education (a nightmare experience dealing with the state and federal departments of education that I should write a book about some day. It was like dealing with Orwellian thought police!)
If you are a history teacher, and I choose that term deliberately. . .not an "educator," caught up in the system, but instead see yourself as a History Teacher, who takes pride in our country and wish to guide students to a sharing of that pride. . .this is your textbook.
It will work on the secondary level and most definitely on the higher ed level. But a warning, your colleagues will howl, harass and attack you over it and frankly you better have tenure if you wish to survive when you bring this book out. By the way, within this book you will read why you need that protection.
For home schoolers, this book is your dream. You left the system for so many reasons and this book will explain many of those reasons.
I hope this book is the first of many that will start to take back the ground dominated for too long by the Left, and beyond that an extremist element who actually hate the subject they write about.
If you are a parent with a student trapped in the system, make this book required reading at home and use it to "reeducate" and fight back. And finally, for the general reader, this one is a rousing good read, well written, great footnotes to follow up on (something you find lacking in nearly all textbooks) and worth studying.
America is not about national race, it is about an ideal. Ultimately we are all immigrants, be we born here or arrived just yesterday. All that holds us together is a shared identification with the dreams of our patriot forefathers and a belief in the ideals of the Declaration and Constitution. Disconnect from that dream for but one generation and the dream will die. This book can help to rekindle what nearly all of us know in our hearts, that though we might make mistakes, fundamentally America is, as Lincoln once said, "the last best hope of mankind."
A college professor in western NC
For Those Genuinely Interested in a Balanced History March 1, 2010
Demaris H. Miller (Rappahannock County, VA USA)
13 out of 16 found this review helpful
After careful examination, I can only conclude that those who wrote one-star reviews neglected to read this book. It is surprisingly even-handed, telling both sides. My high-school history teachers focused on things that interested them -- I can describe in detail the major battles of the Civil War -- and my college professors taught a more complete history, but with a decided liberal bias.
This book is more comprehensive in its treatment of important events in American history, giving both the good and the bad, the popular and the unpopular, from beginning to end. Left and Right will find their heros treated fairly. The 2007 edition does include factual corrections over the 2004 edition, but these are, for the most part, adjustments, correcting small errors that do not detract from the general picture.
If you want to brush up and fill in what your teachers neglected, or if you have teenagers who are getting an inadequate or distorted education in American history, this book is the antidote. I definitely plan to see that my grandchildren read it -- even if I have to bribe them.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 139
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