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

by John M. Murrin

Liberty, Equality, A History of the American People, Concise Edition provides students with a clear understanding of how power is gained, lost, and used in both public and private life. This concise version retains the narrative clarity, unparalleled coverage, and thematic unity of the larger text while fashioning an unmatched integration of social and cultural history into a political story. The concise version' s emphasis on clarity and brevity provides a leaner and clearer presentation for introductory American history students. It retains the same strong chronological and thematic framework as the bigger text, but offers a more manageable option for instructors concerned about too much material and too little time.

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

Hardcover

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.