American Destiny: Narrative of a Nation, Volume I: To 1877

by Mark C. Carnes, John A. Garraty

<!--0321316355, Carnes, American Destiny, 2e, Volume 1//--> With the political history of the nation as its organizational framework, American Destiny: 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, high-quality text offers a low-price alternative to traditional U.S. history survey textbooks.

Genres: History, School

470 pages, Paperback

First published December 10, 2002

About the author

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

Reviews

[Robin · Rating 3 out of 5]

As far as textbooks go, this one really could have been better. It was not set up chronologically, which is understandable. That discourages teachers from forcing the memorization of dates and such. I like that about it. It seemed like they tried to set it up thematically, but did a really bad job of it.
I am anything but a history buff, and even I noticed some gross inaccuracies in their historical 'facts.' So even though I feel like I learned a lot, it makes me wonder how much of what I learned was accurate. Certainly there are better history books out there. I'm not really looking forward to having to read Volume 2 next semester. Maybe I'll get lucky and my teacher will choose a different text to teach from.