American Destiny: Narrative of a Nation, Concise Edition, Volume 2 (since 1865)

by Mark C. Carnes, John A. Garraty

With the political history of the nation as its organizational framework, American Narrative of a Nation describes the development and growth of the United States as the product of the myriad actions, ideas, and forces of the immense variety of individuals and groups who together comprise the American people. In richly detailed prose, the book examines the political, social, economic, and cultural developments that have shaped this country. This elegantly written, concise text offers a lower-price alternative to traditional U.S. history survey textbooks, while maintaining the efficacy of a full four-color map and image program.

608 pages, Paperback

First published December 10, 2002

About the author

Mark C. Carnes is Professor of History at Barnard College.

Reviews

[Robin]

This textbook was okay. I wasn't too crazy about the first volume, either. But they at least compliment each other well. The thing that gets confusing with this book is that it isn't quite written chronologically, and it isn't quite written by theme, either. It seems to be an odd combination of the two.
However, I will say that I did't get bored reading it. I'm not a history buff. At all. But the text kept my attention and if I had to get through 30-40 pages in a day, it wasn't agonizing for me.
My sister-in-law taught out of this book for one semester and hated it, but my history teacher has used it several times and loves it. So it seems that from a teaching standpoint, you'd either really like it or really hate it.
I occasionally found some factual errors. And if I'm finding them, it makes me wonder how many are there that I wouldn't know about. I was also a little disappointed that the closer the book came to the present, the more vague and rushed the information seemed.