America: A Concise History, Volume 2: Since 1865 Review

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America: A Concise History, Volume 2: Since 1865 ReviewOver the past year I have had the opportunity to compare this book with Roark's The American Promise, and I would highly recommend Roark over this book.
The most serious flaw of the Henretta text is its cavalier attitude toward the facts. This is worst in its section on World War II. For example, on pages 800-801, we read "In July 1943 after Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime fell and Mussolini was executed, Italy's new government joined the Allies." Of course, in reality, Mussolini was promptly restored to power by German occupation and did not die until 1945; nor was he executed, but rather murdered by partisans without benefit of trial. On page 805, we read that "The capture of Iwo Jima and Okinawa put bombers in position to attack Japan itself," when in fact it was the previous year's capture of the Marianas that put the Japanese islands in U.S. bomber range. In the very same paragraph, we read that "Before the Soviets could act, the Japanese offered to surrender on August 10," but in reality the USSR had declared war on Japan on August 8, 1945 and had invaded Japanese-held Manchuria on August 9. This oversight is particularly important, in that some historians argue that it was the Soviet declaration of war as much as the atomic bombs that convinced Japan to surrender.
That the book frequently lapses into tendentious left-wing ideology hardly needs mentioning; the vast majority of academic history textbooks today have the same problem, and non-academic right-wing "correctives," like Thomas Woods, are usually even worse. Still, left-wing writing need not be bad writing, nor as distorting to the historical record as this text's often is. For example, on page 519 we find this passage: "In Europe job-seeking peasants commonly tried seasonal agricultural labor or temporary work in nearby cities. America represented merely a larger leap." This is a feeble attempt to pretend that late-19th and early 20th century Europe offered opportunities similar to America's, and, if accepted, renders America's massively larger immigration rate inexplicable.
As might be expected in a book co-authored by three people, the quality varies considerably from chapter to chapter. Chapter 18, "The Rise of the City," stands out as particularly well written. One good technique the authors use is to place U.S. history in its international context, as when comparing the urban history of Chicago to Berlin or pointing out the origin of Chinese immigration to America in a general flood of Chinese immigration throughout the Pacific in the 19th century. It is only in this respect that this text is superior to Roark, which often skimps on the world-historical setting of U.S. history.
While the authors deserve commendation for trying to address the history of American racial minorities, their efforts usually devolve into a mere listing of grievances, especially as regards Native Americans and Latinos; African American achievements and resistance to prejudice are somewhat better described. Women's history comes off best; the authors are generally, though not always, successful in describing women's experience as an integrated whole in which men's oppressive behavior is only one part.
The book's overwhelming drawback compared to Roark is the poverty of illustrations, which are few, ill-chosen, and exclusively black-and-white. In contrast, the maps are excellent.
I can understand that cash-strapped colleges may prefer this book to Roark because it is cheaper. Still, it should have been possible to create a budget college textbook that was more accurate and less biased.America: A Concise History, Volume 2: Since 1865 Overview

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