Who Built America? Vol. 1: Working People and the Nation's History

by Bruce Levine, Roy Rosenzweig, Nancy A. Hewitt

Who Built America? explores fundamental conflicts in United States history by placing working peoples’ struggle for social and economic justice at center stage. Unique among U.S. history survey textbooks for its clear point of view, Who Built America is a joint effort of Bedford/St. Martin’s and the American Social History Project, based at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and renowned for its print, visual, and multimedia productions such as the "History Matters" Web site. With vivid prose, penetrating analysis, an acclaimed visual program, and rich documentary evidence, Who Built America? gives students a thought-provoking book they’ll want to read and instructors an irreplaceable anchor for their course.

Genres: History, Labor, Nonfiction, American History

679 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

Reviews

[Richard Subber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who Built America? is a comprehensive, widely sourced reference work that tackles the story of the actual building of America and our cities, commerce/industries, and infrastructures.
Clark and Hewitt give full attention to the groups of people who labored to do so: native Americans, women and children, minorities, and immigrants are fully credited.
A useful feature is the summary chronology and suggested complementary readings at the end of each chapter.
Who Built America? is a go-to reference for any serious student of American history.
Volume Two, covering the Reconstruction through the end of the 20th century, is an equally appealing component of this series published by the American Social History Project, City University of New York.
This edition was written by Christopher Clark and Nancy A. Hewitt, based on the original edition written by Levine, Brier, Brundage, Countryman, Fennel, and Rediker.
Read more of my book reviews and poems here:
www.richardsubber.com

[Oliver Bateman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Boasting a fantastic selection of primary sources (the images, in particular, are tremendous--WBA's graphic design editors deserve hearty applause for their good work) as well as top-notch historical analysis, Vol. 1 of this series is even better than Vol. 2. Although some of the early chapters proved a bit too dense and information-packed for my less committed students, I'd recommend this book to other instructors who have been assigned to teach the first half of the US history survey.

[Crystal]

School

[Krystal · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the best American history books out there. It shows the middle and lower classes more then the upper class as the lower classes are the ones that built America