America, Volume 2: A Narrative History

This book is being used for an AP American History class. It is easy to read and covers all of the mateial that will be needed for the test. Since I haven't taken the test yet, I can't go into specifics. However, some of my friends used this same book last year and they said it helped immensely.

using it and it gives the information that you need in good perspective. An easy read!

This is volume 2 of a tremendous American history survey, beginning with the Reconstruction era and continuing to the present (well, almost). I used it for 2 years as a university text; I thoroughly enjoyed it and the students didn't seem to dislike it too much (which is saying a great deal). The writing is sophisticated, but the work is also quite readable. As the title suggests, it's a continuous, coherent narrative--not just a series of disjointed, disconnected vignettes. Tindall and Shi pack a grat deal into a tight space, and they do it well. Their work is both comprehensive in scope and attentive to detail--it has both depth and breadth. The highlights: great social, cultural and intellectual history (not just about tariffs and presidential elections!); gives substantial room to women's history, minority narratives and other things that can fall outside the margins of traditional history; fascinating personal portraits of our presidents and other essential Americans (my students always loved hearing about Teddy Roosevelt swimming naked across the Potomoac); offers alternative interpretations of murky historical concepts (e.g., Cold War: the Soviet take vs. the U.S. take). The weaknesses: the authors try so hard to be fair, representative and democratic that the text sometimes reads like a litany of the things that the U.S. government has done to harm people; in its attempt to be thorough and sophisticated, the text sometimes doesn't give adequate background to complex events. On the whole, I highly recommend this work to everyone.

I am a Political Science student, and used this text in A.P. U.S. History in high school. In high school I found that it is, as other reviewers have mentioned, not only packed with information, but occasionally recites short, funny stories and interesting tidbits not found in normal, dry history books. Today, as I do a lot of research and writing for Political Science, I find that I am constantly referring to it to look up all sorts of information listed in tables in the back or to read a paragraph about this or that. It is a wonderful text and a resource for any student in the Social Sciences, or anyone interested in America's history, particularly political history.

As an A-Level History student studying U.S. history, I have found this book invaluable in revision and essay writing. Information is easily accessed, and it is a concise and to-the-point text. Far better in many respects to Hugh Brogan's text, I would highly recommend it to all students.