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History Of The United States
Most notable changes since the original edition include newer content through the Hoover years, chapters on westward migration and the post-Civil War years, and a rewriting of the chapter on the framing of the Constitution.
- GenresHistory
1029 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2007
8 people want to read
About the author
Henry W. Elson
125 books3 followersHenry W. Elson wrote on U.S. History. He was a professor at Ohio State University.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
June 22, 2023
We were seeking a text to use as the core of our US History study to WWI for my children in grades 8, 10, and 12. I wanted something, as I said, that was "neither a glittering patriotic work like Larry Schweikart's A Patriot's History nor a deconstructionist view like Howard Zinn's A People's History, something with more subdued metanarratives." One of my boys found this text on the free shelf at Riverow Books. And it certainly worked.
I have yet to find a text book that is perfect. As will surprise no one, a text last revised in 1937, covering history up into the 1930s, has proved itself dated at times in its myopia regarding some events, and its critiques of culture and history. His passionate paragraphs arguing how great the League of Nations will be, and that the U.S. should really join it, seem Pollyannish. His prediction of the speedy demise of the Soviet government seem likewise optimistic.
His views on race will probably get the most attention in this day and age. It wasn't until the post Reconstruction era that these really appeared in their most problematic form, although his simplistic view of the Native American "noble savage," the "child of nature" as he calls him, is notable. The Wild West was "almost devoid of human inhabitants except for the numerous Indian tribes that still roamed at will" he tells us, apparently unaware of the incongruity. (p822) Elson engages in some hand-wringing that the [Indian] race seems incapable of civilization and has been too 'coddled' by the US government. "Take him to the centers of industry and civilization, and he pines for his forest home." (841) Well, don't most of us?
In defense of the Chinese Exclusion Act and the Gentlemen's agreement, he remarks, "The Japanese are an admirable and courageous people, but their ideals and civilization are so unlike our own that the two peoples cannot blend into one. In this respect they must be classed with the Chinese, and if they were to come to our shores in great numbers the result would be a race problem more serious than the Indian and the Negro problem. Not on economic but on racial grounds we owe it to the future of American to refuse the admission of large numbers of Orientals to this country." (p896)
Elson has a predilection for superlatives. There are so many " very most important personal victories" by men of whom Elson says, "no more honest an American has ever " that it starts to seem like a pantheon. His editor might have considered reigning this tendency in a bit.
All that said, Elson hits the important topics with a deal of depth and a tolerable narrative voice. At times he makes scathing observations. When the Republican party makes a key platform in its 1868 convention equal suffrage of black and white voters in the south, Elson points to the hypocrisy that the Republican states of Connecticut, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ohio, Kansas, as well as Indiana and California, themselves denied blacks equal suffrage at that point. This was a new fact that I learned, along with others, in my reading of this text.
Because he allows himself the space for historical commentary, he occasionally has very quotable remarks, such as his observations that the party in power always gets blamed for things that happen whether they are responsible or not, and that "Nothing is more unwholesome in politics than an abnormal preponderance of any political party over its nearest rival." (904)
Every history text book--every readable one, certainly--has its set of world view assumptions, and its occasional blind spots. So every history book has its passages which merit some discussion, reflection, even criticism, from its readers.
But for a free book, last revised 86 years ago, this text was sufficient.
I have yet to find a text book that is perfect. As will surprise no one, a text last revised in 1937, covering history up into the 1930s, has proved itself dated at times in its myopia regarding some events, and its critiques of culture and history. His passionate paragraphs arguing how great the League of Nations will be, and that the U.S. should really join it, seem Pollyannish. His prediction of the speedy demise of the Soviet government seem likewise optimistic.
His views on race will probably get the most attention in this day and age. It wasn't until the post Reconstruction era that these really appeared in their most problematic form, although his simplistic view of the Native American "noble savage," the "child of nature" as he calls him, is notable. The Wild West was "almost devoid of human inhabitants except for the numerous Indian tribes that still roamed at will" he tells us, apparently unaware of the incongruity. (p822) Elson engages in some hand-wringing that the [Indian] race seems incapable of civilization and has been too 'coddled' by the US government. "Take him to the centers of industry and civilization, and he pines for his forest home." (841) Well, don't most of us?
In defense of the Chinese Exclusion Act and the Gentlemen's agreement, he remarks, "The Japanese are an admirable and courageous people, but their ideals and civilization are so unlike our own that the two peoples cannot blend into one. In this respect they must be classed with the Chinese, and if they were to come to our shores in great numbers the result would be a race problem more serious than the Indian and the Negro problem. Not on economic but on racial grounds we owe it to the future of American to refuse the admission of large numbers of Orientals to this country." (p896)
Elson has a predilection for superlatives. There are so many " very most important personal victories" by men of whom Elson says, "no more honest an American has ever " that it starts to seem like a pantheon. His editor might have considered reigning this tendency in a bit.
All that said, Elson hits the important topics with a deal of depth and a tolerable narrative voice. At times he makes scathing observations. When the Republican party makes a key platform in its 1868 convention equal suffrage of black and white voters in the south, Elson points to the hypocrisy that the Republican states of Connecticut, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ohio, Kansas, as well as Indiana and California, themselves denied blacks equal suffrage at that point. This was a new fact that I learned, along with others, in my reading of this text.
Because he allows himself the space for historical commentary, he occasionally has very quotable remarks, such as his observations that the party in power always gets blamed for things that happen whether they are responsible or not, and that "Nothing is more unwholesome in politics than an abnormal preponderance of any political party over its nearest rival." (904)
Every history text book--every readable one, certainly--has its set of world view assumptions, and its occasional blind spots. So every history book has its passages which merit some discussion, reflection, even criticism, from its readers.
But for a free book, last revised 86 years ago, this text was sufficient.
Displaying 1 of 1 review