Liberty, Equality, and Power: A History of the American People, Volume II: Since 1863

by John M. Murrin, Paul E. Johnson, James M. McPherson

Understanding the past helps us navigate the present and future. When you read this text, you will not only learn about American History, you will be exposed to movies and music that tell the stories of American History in addition to the reading material you expect in a college level history book. A highly respected, balanced, and thoroughly modern approach to US History, LIBERTY, EQUALITY, POWER, uses themes in a unique approach to show how the United States was transformed, in a relatively short time, from a land inhabited by hunter-gatherer and agricultural Native American societies into the most powerful industrial nation on earth. This approach helps you understand not only the impact of the notions of liberty and equality, which are often associated with the American story, but also how dominant and subordinate groups have affected and been affected by the ever-shifting balance of power.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, School, American History, Textbooks

528 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1997

About the author

John M. Murrin, Ph.D. (Yale University; A.M., University of Notre Dame; B.A., College of St. Thomas), was Professor Emeritus of History at Princeton University, where he taught from 1973 to 2003. Previously he taught at Washington University in St. Louis.

A past president of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic, he was elected a fellow of the Society of American Historians and a member of the American Antiquarian Society.

Reviews

[Crystal Bond · Rating 3 out of 5]

A whole history textbook, can’t say I loved it but I did it 🤝

[Meltha · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'll grant you, this isn't the most lively writing, and the text loops around a lot in the timeline, but it does provide a pretty decent overview of the second half of American history. If your school experience was anything like mine, we never got much past the Civil War in history class. This fills in the gap. I'm embarrassed to say I didn't know very much about a lot of this time period (aside from World War II, which isn't actually discussed as much as I thought it would be, really). The text does occasionally have some editing errors that needed to be caught, the most glaring one in the section on the 1960s when they accidentally mixed up Martin Luther King Jr.'s and Robert Kennedy's names, a mistake due to the next paragraph being about RFK's assassination. I will also say that while the tone of the book was generally pretty neutral throughout, there was a certain amount of anger that seemed to pop up in the section on George W. Bush's presidency. I'm not a fan of the man, but the textbook's tone did change pretty perceptibly (not sure I can blame them on that, either). The most recent event covered is the BP explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, so the last four or so years aren't really touched. Overall, though, I did like the ability to study the more recent events in history.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great book. Read for college and was one of my favorite books used for class ever.