A Concise History of the United States of America

Cambridge Concise Histories

by Susan-Mary Grant

Born out of violence and the aspirations of its early settlers, the United States of America has become one of the world's most powerful nations, even as its past continues to inform its present and to mould its very identity as a nation. The search for nationhood and the ambiguities upon which the nation was founded are at the root of this intelligent and forthright book. Taking a broadly chronological approach, it begins in colonial America as the first Europeans arrived, lured by the promise of financial profit, driven by religious piety, and accompanied by the diseases which would ravage and consume the native populations. It explores the tensions inherent in a country built on slave labor in the name of liberty, one forced to assert its unity and reassess its ideals in the face of secession and civil war, and one that struggled to establish moral supremacy, military security, and economic stability during the financial crises and global conflicts of the twentieth century. Woven through this richly crafted study of America's shifting social and political landscapes are the multiple voices of the nation's slaves and slave owners, revolutionaries and reformers, soldiers and statesmen, immigrants and refugees. It is their voices, together with those of today's multicultural America, that define the United States at the dawn of a new century.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Audiobook, American History

472 pages, Paperback

First published December 15, 2011

About the author

Susan-Mary Grant, Ph.D. (University of London), is Professor of American History in the School of History, Classics and Archaeology at University of Newcastle, England. She co-founded and is the current Chair of the association of British American Nineteenth Century Historians (BrANCH), is an officer of the Scottish Association for the Study of America, and serves on the editorial board of Nations and Nationalism.

Reviews

[Benjamin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good overview of American history with a frequent emphasis on discrimination and racism. There's a poverty of information on wars and military interventions.

[Jon Black · Rating 3 out of 5]

An ok book for getting a broad overview of American history. It focuses largely on the domestic history of the United States and doesn't talk a lot about foreign policy, except in the case of the Vietnam War and maybe WW2. The book has some interesting things to say about the position of the natives, black people, and women throughout the US's history, especially in the earlier part of the history.

However, the book approaches the modern day though it tends to hew closer to the official line you'd expect from the US government. The coverage of the Cold War is not great, and there's some outright inaccuracies at points. For example Grant refers to the "Viet Cong" as being a North Vietnamese force when anyone familiar with the Vietnam War knows they were made up of Southern Vietnamese. This is part of Grant's attempt to portray the war as strictly a conflict between North and South Vietnam which is of course ahistoric. Another example: Grant asserts that the Gulf of Tonkin incident "may have" involved the Vietnamese attacking the USS Maddox, but this is too generous to the US government given even their internal reports, since declassified, acknowledge there was no attack.

Overall a mediocre book, but I don't regret reading it because I did learn a thing or two.

[Kamran syed · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's more of a political history or political struggle between different sections of the American society than the all encompassing history. It's difficult to describe it but the logical historical events are missing. The chronology is not inclusive of all that happened in the United States of America from its birth till today. Great wars, inventions amd interventions are completely missing. The aspect of black Afro-American & the political struggles are vividly described which makes the title of the book a little blurry.

[Keith · Rating 3 out of 5]

How very different from the textbooks I (somewhat vaguely) remember! Its focus on social history rather than political left me with the impression of being wishy-washy, not necessarily due to any faults in the book but rather my experience of what a history textbook is — I did want more a sense of concreteness. Perhaps there is in the printed version (ie, footnotes) rather than the audio (I think a general limitation of audio history).

[arafat · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very well-written survey history, as enjoyable to read as it is insightful!

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book gives a good summary of domestic American history. Given it’s length and scope it’s not expected to go much deeper than that. I enjoyed the parallels brought up throughout the book such as the frequent question of what an american is, how inclusion can promote exclusion, and how moral panics have always happened and continue to happen in society.

[Zeynep Koç · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is very rich in detail. I love the author's perspective, it's enlightening!

[Griff Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reads a bit like a really long essay. Not a particularly useful way to fill in gaps in knowledge like I was hoping for.

[Nora · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really want to give this book a higher rating. The great writing style and effort Grant obviously took in creating such an interesting read is commendable. By about the time Lincoln had arrived on the scene, however, the book had devolved into a never ending stream of social strife that had squeezed out other topics of interest entirely. I think there was one sentence written on the War of 1812 and it was placed as an after thought. Believe, we know how bad our history looks. We had and have a lot of racial discord in this country very much worth discussing and working out but I felt like Grant missed major topics because she ran out of space, leaving enough room for America's social and racial problems. Or perhaps this book should have been titled differently so as not to have misdirected the reader into thinking this was a concise history of the United States rather than what it is - a detailed and accurate, although noticeably opinionated, story of our struggles with cultures and working together as we created ourselves.

[Reprievedsoul · Rating 1 out of 5]

Unstructured stream-of-consciousness (at best). Dictated lecture-notes, probably.
Dr.Grant needs to acknowledge that this knowledgable reference book will not correct te 'wrongs of history' unless it appleas itself to the fundamentals of logic nd reason. Start where We are (not where we wish). State your hypotheses and evidence. Draw Conclusions from the Evidence.

I'm not finding this book rewarding enough to be worth the effort. Too many internal contradictions, too hard going. Yet it's a good approach, especially in the context to current/recent White House events, which it does seem to presage. But "Concise" it's not. Maybe short, by history-book standards, but there's a difference. Concise needs to be a work which gets points across efficiently, with structure and emphasis.
This one meds to be edited down to concision.