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| 7/9 |
| 2004/8/5 [Politics/Domestic/California, Politics/Domestic/President] UID:32703 Activity:very high |
8/4 What is a decent book on general US history? One that is intelligent
and well researched, not consists of fairy tale or only diatribes,
and the intended audience are neither freepers nor Spartakusbund.
Ok thanks.
\_ I am Spartakusbund!
\_ No, I am Spartakusbund!
\_ Personally, I think that the people with an axe to grind tend to
be the best writers, and that it's useful to read biased stuff
like "A People's History of the United States" as long as you
recognize and igore the bias and the propoganda. I'd be curious
to know what the conservative equivalent of Zinn's book is.
A history text with no bias at all which attempts to cover all
of U.S. history will probably be a massive compilation of
dry facts with no focus on anything that's not very readable, IMHO.
I'd love to see a counterexample to this, however.
\_ agreed. one (of many) good things about 'peoples history...'
is that he specifically chooses his biases, and states them
in the introduction. and his biases cover a lot of information
that is rarely touched upon in more conservative history books.
plus it was a fun read.
\_ The Americans series by Daniel J. Boorstin (former Librarian of
Congress and yaDJB :-)) is pretty good:
Colonial Experience: http://tinyurl.com/63gey
Democratic Experience: http://tinyurl.com/55gc2
National Experience: http://tinyurl.com/594nv
I also liked his Discovers: http://tinyurl.com/4cyov
--ranga
\_ What's yaDJB? Yet another himself????
\_ A People's History of the United States is pretty good and
non-biased. by Howard Zinn.
\_ your idiocy knows no bounds.
\_ and your recommendation is ....
\_ yes! I think this counts as my first successful troll.
\_ whatever. i was calling you an idiot because the first
reply was about Zinn's book, and the reply to that
was also about Zinn's book. |
| 7/9 |
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| tinyurl.com/63gey -> www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0394705130/qid=1091720874/sr=8-1/ref=pd_ka_1/102-9155642-3555319?v=glance&s=books&n=507846 com The first book in a trilogy--and in many respects the best of the bunch--The Colonial Experience is an essential interpretation of how the habits of people who lived more than two centuries ago shaped the lives of modern Americans. Boorstin shows how an undiscovered continent shattered long-standing traditions and utopian fantasies with the hard demands of everyday life far from the sophisticated centers of European civilization: "Old categories were shaken up, and new situations revealed unsuspected uses for old knowledge," writes Boorstin. He starts with a series of penetrating essays on the Puritans of Massachusetts, the Quakers of Pennsylvania, the philanthropists of Georgia, and the planters of Virginia, then tackles a set of diffuse topics that range from astronomy to language to medicine in fascinating vignettes. The Colonial Experience is must reading for anybody interested in the development of the American character. "A superb panorama of life in America from the first settlements on through the white hot days of the Revolution." In writing The Colonial Experience, the first part of his series The Americans, Daniel Boorstin has essentially set down to paper a series of connected events that illustrate what he thinks is the quintessential American experience. Largely positive in tone, Boorstin's assertion is that in early America there was a truly new society formed, and whatever similarities must necessarily continue from Europe, the North American colonies soon developed their own lifestyles, perspectives, beliefs, and cultures. On the nuts and bolts level, this is a series of topical descriptions. It will really help if the reader knows something about American history to start out with. That said, a good recollection of middle school lessons would be sufficient, but more would be better. This allows Boorstin to examine in more depth the topics he wishes to cover, without worrying about filling in the gaps everywhere. He starts with a look at the "social character" - for lack of a better term - of settlers in four colonies; But even here he still keeps the focus on certain aspects of those colonies. Massachusetts, we all know, what founded by the Puritans, fleeing lack of religious freedom in England and too much of it in Holland. What is it, Boorstin asks, that Puritanism brought to America that gave distinctions to the outlook of those colonists? What was unique and distinctive about Quakerism, and how did it change? What effects did religion have on the running of colonial governments? In Georgia, the foundations were not religious, but philanthropic. The founders wanted to create an American utopia of silkworm farmers in carefully constructed perfect townships with no social injustice or problems of any sort. Boorstin is clearly not sympathetic to this viewpoint, nor do I blame him, but he shows how this distinct viewpoint led to that colony's founding and how it was modified (failed utterly is a better description). And finally, in Virginia, there was no other founding philosophy other than to thrive and profit as each man saw fit. Rather than forming towns, they formed plantations (there were towns, but they were small). The obligation of successful men was only to take part in governing the colony. Later sections cover other topics, including education, philosophy, science, culture, and others. We get a close look at some aspect of life about which Boorstin asks "How did this make America? A number of reviewers have expressed opinions on the specifics of Boorstin's final conclusions. I think he was for the most part sound minded, though he certainly skipped a lot. Many of his ideas sound reminiscent of de Tocqueville, though in how much detail I don't know. There seems to be a bit of a conservative streak in the writing, but it's probably more accurate to call it optimistic - an option available to him by focusing on only certain subjects. In fairness, I do think he hit upon many of the major themes that made America special and unique. So based on his historian's eye for a good story, and generally strong writing overall, I'd say The Colonial Experience is well worth the read whether you happen to agree with everything or not. See all my reviews Boorstin examines the influences Old World ideas had on the New World of America. He pays close attention to how the Old World ideas were transplanted and changed in America. Boorstin demonstrates that this change was present with most every institution or idea brought from Europe to America. The Americans is the winner of the Bancroft Prize, a prestigious award for works in History. Boorstin's The Colonial Experience is extremely well organized, thorough, and related the history of America to me in a contemporary style. I applaud Boorstin, for he has succeeded in writing an excellent book on the history of early America that even a fledgling history student, like myself, could fully grasp without losing any detail. See all my reviews When Boorstin named his epic trilogy The Americans rather than American History or History of the American People, he greeted the reader with a different approach to history. He arranged his brief chapters thematically rather than chronologically, while maintaining a high level of detail, and thus created a masterwork of compression, a talent Boorstin repeated later in The Creators and The Discoverers. Volume One covers the American experience from the New England colonies through the War for Independence. The thematic approach might suggest that the question, "What is an American?" Yet if there is one truth about Americans it is that they reveal themselves more in doing than in philosophizing. Unburdened by the systematizing of the European ideologue, they demonstrate repeatedly that they are among the most tolerant people who have inhabited the earth. For Massachusetts Puritans, orthodoxy and tradition had solved most theoretical questions, freeing them from the theological debates of their European counterparts. The Virginia aristocrats, a remarkable pool of talent, applied the practical skills of running a plantation to running a colony, creating a haven of toleration and rapid growth. By contrast, the fanaticism, utopianism, and pacifism of the Quakers failed to protect Pennsylvania from Indian attacks and drove the Quakers from power. Good intentions did nothing to fix the failed humanitarianism of the Georgia colony. Americans were great naturalists, learning by experience, experiment, and the evidence of the senses. Where books existed at all, they were more likely to be farming almanacs or medical manuals than heavy tomes in literature or metaphysics. Americans were least likely to wage war over sacred land or a Bible verse. Moreover, their habits were intensely local and their allegiance was to family, community, and colony, in that order. Militias had to be formed by the command of the British government a thousand miles way. Although citizen soldiers traded their pitchforks for rifles when so ordered, they were quick to return to farming, whether the battle was finished or not. The lack of a standing, professional army drove General Washington to distraction. Here are the roots of civilian control of the military which has haunted us to this day. Boorstin provides numerous examples to prove, not merely assert, that American character and institutions grew from the facts of American life, not from theory, not from the ideas of Enlightenment philosophers or any age's philosophers. I expected the appearance of certain undeniably significant men-Washington, Adams, Jefferson-but I was surprised to see the amount of time given to the influence of William Penn, William Byrd, Cotton Mather, John Winthrop, and, most notable of all, Ben Franklin, who truly deserved the title of renaissance man. Their example makes volume one the most inspiring of the trilogy. This is a young work of Boorstin and even years later it still lives up to its greatness. The first book of a trilogy, it sets the tone for the two to follow. We are not given a dry reading of dates and places and wars and settlements. Instead it is a readable story of movements, n... |
| tinyurl.com/55gc2 -> www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0394710118/qid=1091720894/sr=ka-3/ref=pd_ka_3/102-9155642-3555319 com Daniel J Boorstin describes a post-Civil War America united not by ideological conviction or religious faith but by common participation in ordinary living: "A new civilization found new ways of holding men together--less and less by creed or belief, by tradition or by place, more and more by common effort and common experience, by the apparatus of daily life, by their ways of thinking about themselves." This is not a familiar litany of names, dates, and places, but an anecdotal account that rises far above impressionism and paints a compelling portrait of the United States as it climbed to new heights. " -- Henry Steele Commager "A huge, fascinating omnibus of a book ... an exhilarating adventure that carries us along the highways and byways of a national history like no other." See all my reviews The third and final volume of Boorstin's trilogy reveals the democratizing of experience that took place in America after the Civil War and up to the present day, an "Age of Revolution" more revolutionary than America's War for Independence. I wonder how many Americans have realized, as Boorstin did, that democracy was being elevated beyond its definition, from a form of government in which people participated through voting for representatives, to a substitute religion, a sieve in which nearly every facet of modern life was filtered. In these pages: democratization of purchases, travel, work, culture, time and space until finally democratizing of the atom. Democracy was not the only word being stretched, transformed, and distorted. From these pages you could compile a dictionary of Americanisms created by an obsessive-compulsive people who coined new words to fit their new inventions, methods, and ideas. Where in volumes one and two of the trilogy local community was the glue, the third volume demonstrates the American willingness to change even the foundations which had supported them. Boorstin presents us with chapters on the "Go-Getters" who created artificial communities to replace the old communities based on localism. "Everywhere communities" suggested inclusion but also uniformity and attenuation of experience. "Consumption communities" meant being united less by the Bible than by the Sears catalog. A religion of consumption was created by the dispersal of raw materials and products throughout the country via train, plane, and automobile and by the dominance of the businessman, lawyer, and salesman. "Statistical communities" reduced Americans further to numbers based on how much income they earned, how much they consumed, or how they behaved in relation to the growing mass of people. The totalizing effect of democracy was such that "Americanization" became a synonym for "democratization." The last section discusses the growth of foreign aid and the sense that the American mission meant turning other countries into democracies of cash. "Americanism" was itself an Americanism to describe the desire, if not the moral obligation, to make other countries more like us. No book has taught me as much about the United States and its people as Boorstin's trilogy. A brief look at the annotated bibliography reveals how much time and effort has been put into these books over the course of many years. Equally remarkable is Boorstin's ability to convey this mass of material in an entertaining, objective manner. Few books have conveyed the same tragic sense of history. Every page is filled with continuities, ambiguities, and reverberations that show that history is double-edged, simultaneously full of remarkable achievements and unintended consequences. See all my reviews Many have described Boorstin's "The Americans" series as being right-wing. He writes about a period, in reality our age, as if it is still happening because it is. The third and final book in the series shows that he is unsure if the changes from the Civil War to the present day have not all been for the betterment of mankind. Although written three decades ago, I would say that this book is more relevant than ever. I think that everyone should read "The Americans" series. There is a bit more of Boorstin's curmugeony personality in this last book, but don't let that disuade you from enjoying a very complex perspective of America in the Twentieth Century and, very possibly, the Twenty-First Century. See all my reviews In un-Zinn-like, yet still richly diverse prose Mr Boorstin gives the fair-minded liberal battleground to do revisionist work. Another reviewer on this site reads Boorstin as "drifting to the right". That's why Madison left a record of the spirited talks in the hallowed halls of Philly way long ago. Report this) 3 of 5 people found the following review helpful: 4 out of 5 stars Mostly fascinating, July 16, 2000 Reviewer: A reader This is mostly a collection of mini-histories of the various American businesses and inventions that arose after the Civil War, which are often hugely fascinating on a purely factual level. Boorstin's big argument is that American life became more and more unmoored to local places and common bodies of knowledge, resulting in a disorienting and dispiriting world of mass marketing and suburbs, with gadgets that worked in ways no one can understand. There is a right-wing drift to his ideas, but the sureness of his opinions is nice to hear even if you don't agree. Suggestion Box Your comments can help make our site better for everyone. If you've found something incorrect, broken, or frustrating on this page, let us know so that we can improve it. 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| tinyurl.com/594nv -> www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0394703588/ref=pd_bxgy_text_1/102-9155642-3555319?v=glance&s=books&st=* com Daniel J Boorstin, one of America's great historians, focuses on American ingenuity and emergent nationalism in this middle book of the Americans trilogy, dealing with a period extending roughly from the Revolution to the Civil War. Like its two companion volumes, The National Experience is a sometimes quirky look at how certain patterns of living helped shape the character of the United States. The book simply overflows with ideas, all of them introduced in entertaining chapters on subjects such as the New England ice industry and the boomtowns of the Midwest. Boorstin is a delight to read, a genuine polymath whose wide-ranging interests and love of learning show up on every page. I can only repeat that this is a fine book -- controversial certainly, but a courageous, learned and most... As I said in my review of the Colonial Experience volume, this is not a history that is cogently and logically argued. Instead, it is a disjointed series of well researched stories and anecdotes - there is no attempt at analysis or to relate them to trends that contributed to the present state of America. Absolutely none, when the stories beg for them and could have been analysed with a little more effort. Moreover, I read the book on travel and while I enjoyed it on a long train ride, I remember virtually nothing now - that is a sure mark for me of the fact that this is more fluff than real historical writing. This is one of my tests for meatiness: if I remember a lot and feel like I need to learn much more, I feel the book is a success. See all my reviews Volume Two of The Americans trilogy covers the period between the Revolution and the Civil War when America was shaping a national identity with boundless faith in the future. Like the young Mark Twain in Roughing It, many Americans felt that westward movement alone would give them purpose and that the future would somehow take care of itself. History books which have bored me have relied excessively on the indiscriminate accumulation of detail. While this obsessive desire to be thorough might be necessary for the education of students, quantity of detail alone fails to give the complete, balanced view of reality that I look for in all kinds of reading. One reason I like Boorstin is that he writes narrative history, favoring theme over chronology, thus allowing the continuities and significance of history to emerge. What I thought were signs of the times often turned out to be peculiarly American characteristics. Boorstin writes, for example, that government paid for railroads and colleges in order to serve the growing community. Spencer's dichotomy of "The Man Versus the State" in 19th century Europe was meaningless in 19th Century America because distinctions such as public and private were often blurred. It is fitting that Boorstin divided his book into "Community" and "Nationality" because community preceded government. Contrary to the myth of the rugged individual explorer, Americans traveled in groups. Settlers who headed west, regardless of motive, wrote their own Mayflower Compact before loading the wagons. Venturing into lawless areas, they formed laws for their protection. Even vigilantism was a way of maintaining order rather than flaunting it. The second half of the book examines vagueness as a source of strength. The country grew and prospered before its geographical boundaries had been explored. Here are also passages on American ways of talking, the creation of myths and legends, the establishment of the national holiday, and the importance of political parties. Nearly every page of Boorstin's history contains some nugget of Americana which in isolation appears to be trivial but in historical context emerges to reveal something profound about American life. Report this) 3 of 3 people found the following review helpful: 5 out of 5 stars Enlightening and enjoyable history, August 13, 2002 Reviewer: A reader (LA, CA) Both this book and its counterpart, The Democratic Experience, offer an anecdotal and entertaining approach to American history. In The National Experience, Boorstin focuses on the development of a national character and national customs. Rather than trying to force history to fit into a deterministic and logical mold, Boorstin shows just how the disconnectedness of American history has contributed to American development. I find Boorstin's works very readable, and the style enjoyable. My only concern is that sometimes it seems that some complexities are ignored in favor of developing an overall theme. However, this remains one of very few histories I pick up for fun to read a few chapters. From the American Industrial revolution to the western expansion, this book opened my eyes to many factors in the building of our nation. In lectures, I often quote Boorstin and his observations. I also found it amusing when he exploded some common myths concerning our history. Suggestion Box Your comments can help make our site better for everyone. If you've found something incorrect, broken, or frustrating on this page, let us know so that we can improve it. Please note that we are unable to respond directly to suggestions made via this form. |
| tinyurl.com/4cyov -> www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0394726251/qid=1091721360/sr=1-7/ref=sr_1_7/102-9155642-3555319?v=glance&s=books com Perhaps the greatest book by one of our greatest historians, The Discoverers is a volume of sweeping range and majestic interpretation. this is the story of how humankind has come to know the world, however incompletely ("the eternal mystery of the world," Einstein once said, "is its comprehensibility"). Daniel J Boorstin first describes the liberating concept of time--"the first grand discovery"--and continues through the age of exploration and the advent of the natural and social sciences. The approach is idiosyncratic, with Boorstin lingering over particular figures and accomplishments rather than rushing on to the next set of names and dates. It's also primarily Western, although Boorstin does ask (and answer) several interesting questions: Why didn't the Chinese "discover" Europe and America? His thesis about discovery ultimately turns on what he calls "illusions of knowledge." If we think we know something, then we face an obstacle to innovation. The great discoverers, Boorstin shows, dispel the illusions and reveal something new about the world. An outstanding book--one of the best works of history to be found anywhere. This richly illustrated two-volume edition reveals the world as known to the discovers themselves. We see the tools of discovery--Egyptian obelisks, early clocks, Leeuwenhoek's microscope, Mercator's maps, botanical drawings from James Cook's voyages--and glimpse the social, cultural... read more --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Book Description An original history of man's greatest adventure: his search to discover the world around him. See all my reviews This book tells the story of mankind's scientific heroes throughout the ages. It focuses mainly on renaissance age discoveries and inventions, and is mostly (but not completely) Eurocentric. Daniel Boorstin has obviously put an amazing amount of time and effort into this comprehensive book. The result is over 700 pages of tightly spaced text that cover everything from geography, to anthropology, to economics, and all the way to physics and chemistry. "The Discoverers" is as comprehensive as a doctoral dissertation, and often reads like one. Latin words and phrases are liberally sprayed throughout the text, and at times I felt as if Boorstin was intentionally trying to use the most obscure terms just for the fun of it. I also found the text and the narration to be mostly dry. I enjoyed the awe inspiring scope of this work, and its ability to illustrate the connections and interactions between scientists and their peers, and to show how discoveries and inventions were often based on earlier works. However, I felt that this format does not allow for the proper exploration of each topic. For example, the amazing discoveries of Faraday and Maxwell, are together told in only 4 pages... The bottom line is that "The Discoverers" is not easy to read, and while it gives a tantalizing glimpse into a large number of topics, each of these topics is only briefly discussed. However, the sheer scope of the book gives the reader a fascinating bird's eye view of man's struggle to understand his world. See all my reviews Boorstin is neither a scientist by training nor a sailor by profession, but he has a superb intellect and a writing style that is breezy and sometimes witty. I only have a few criticisms about his idiosyncratic selections. When you're writing a three-part intellectual history of the West running to 2000 pages, you ought to devote at least a full chapter to the greatest discoverer of all time. Like most historians, Boorstin underestimated the importance of Franklin in the history of science. A common enough error, forgivable since Boorstin is no historian of science. There's little mention of Hume and none of Schopenhauer among the Seekers, though these were two of the greatest minds in philosophy. Mozart's life gets all of three pages in the Creators, although he was probably the greatest artistic genius of world history. The Seekers is disproportionally short, making the trilogy rather asymmetrical. It's more important to say what needs to be said than worry about the length. But there are so many non-scientific, non-artistic thinkers to talk about that it seems odd not to write more or expand upon the ones he does talk about at greater length. One gets the impression that Boorstin thinks little of the people he calls the Seekers. Or perhaps he was tired by the time he got to writing this one. See all my reviews Being a fan of history I can be very thankful to my friend for recommending this book for me. Here in 650 compact pages is basically the entire history of discovery. From the invention of time to the innovations in agriculture; from voyages of the Europeans to 'new worlds' to the fifteenth century Chinese voyages to Africa; Boorstin uses an exhaustive collection of research to tell the stories of discovery in a very lucid, almost novel-like, style that proves engaging to the very last page. His tellings of the voyages of Amerigo Vespucci and Captain Cook are some of the best parts. But with this being the seventieth review of this book, I doubt there is much more I can offer in summary that has not already been alluded to; but there is one bit of insight I would like to point out. The one-hundred or so pages dedicated to the voyages of discovery conducted by Europe from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries are told purely from a standpoint of facts and discoveries. Readers looking for any input on the effects of discovery on the native populations of America and elsewhere will have to in turn look elsewhere. The same thinking applies to new political thoughts such as the French Revolution and Marxism: just the facts and the reasons. Read it with that in mind and it is one of the best books on history in recent memory. See all my reviews In my quest to learn more about world history, I bought this book as a starting place. An enormous amount of work must have gone into this (and his other history books), and while I definitely found most of the reading very engaging, there were some chapters that became quite a chore to get through. All in all I came away with a better understanding of historical figures whose names I'd only heard in passing, but who I now understand to have had a significant role in the world's major and not-so-major discoveries. I intend to try another in his series, perhaps "The Creators". See all my reviews I was moved to write this as I learned of Daniel Boorstin's death. While he is gone, his book, "The Discoverers" will be with us for many years as a classic. I have been in both multi-national and venture environments for thirty years, bringing pioneering advanced medical technologies to the global marketplace. When I stumbled onto "The Discoverers" in 1987, I could not put it down. This is a must book for anyone involved in the process of discovery. Boorstin clearly shows that discovery is the adventure of discovering a fundamental truth... While the earth has always been round and bacteria have been here longer than mankind, our understanding of fundamental 'truths' like these took years to discover. Money, prestige, power, suppressed independent thinking, and laziness all combined to create a 'group think,' a status quo, that was difficult to change. Boorstin shows how 'group think' worked against the acceptance of new ideas, and the eventual discovery of truth. Those who are involved in discovery will recognize that these same obstacles stand in our way today. I have purchased 50+ copies since I bought my first copy. I have given them as gifts to others who have dedicated their lives as entreprenuers, scientists, and/or venture capitalists in an effort to creating a better world. This is a book that tells their story and why they must not give up. Suggestion Box Your comments can help make our site better for everyone. If you've found something incorrect, broken, or frustrating on this page, let us know so that we can improve it. Please note that we are unable to respond directly to suggestions made via this form. |