American Passages: A History of the American People, Volume 1: To 1877

by Edward L.; Oshinsky Jean R.; Gould Lewis L. Ayers, Lewis L. Gould, David M. Oshinsky

Each chapter in this thorough, chronologically-organized book follows the contours of sequence, event, and connection, emphasizing the most significant events and changes of the period covered. Politics, economics, and culture are woven into an interrelated pattern, focusing the reader's attention on the way various facets of history interact and connect. This logical approach makes for a uniquely engaging, accurate presentation of American history.

Genres: History

656 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Liz Derrington]

This is the textbook for the early American history class I'm taking (HI 111); I've got the third edition. It's been quite a while since I've had to read a proper textbook for a class, and by and large I think the issues I have with this book are endemic to survey textbooks rather than specific to this text (i.e. whole decades, battles, social issues being confined to a single sentence). The maps are good (though occasionally mislabeled, which I hope they've fixed in the 4th ed.). Overall I suspect my grandfather, who's rather a slave to Fox News, would be apopleptic over some of what this text teaches, which is for me, of course, a point in its favor. If you're looking for an early American history textbook, I'm sure you could do worse.

[Raven Ivanov]

Very interesting!