Product Description

From Columbus's voyage to the Clinton administration, author Kenneth C. Davis carries the reader on a rollicking ride through 600 years of Americana. With wit, candor and fascinating facts, he explodes long-held myths and misconceptions -- revealing the very human side of history that the textbooks neglect.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #243252 in Books
• Published on: 1991-06-07
• Released on: 1999-09-07
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 462 pages

Amazon.com
Finally, someone who tells history like it was, without the old textbook gloss that's put so many students into premature naptime and misinformed the few who stayed awake. Davis corrects the myths and misconceptions from Columbus up through the Clinton administration, and shows that truth is more entertaining than propaganda.

Amazon.com Audiobook Review
Kenneth Davis's aim in this program, as it is in all the titles of this popular series, is to make learning relevant and fun. He succeeds marvelously. Davis has an easygoing style and a good sense of humor. And most importantly, he knows how to present the "big picture." His history of the United States is not a series of isolated incidents that happened long ago with no bearing on contemporary American life. Listening to this presentation, we recognize patterns, notice how problems of the past resurface in our own present, and realize that history is what makes us today. We are also presented with a look at American history that is far more honest than anything gleaned from traditional textbooks. Heroes and villains alike are presented, warts and all, and the "less savory moments" in America's past are discussed frankly. For, as Davis explains, "the real picture is much more interesting than the historical tummy tuck." The theme running through the program, from pre-European settlement to the Reagan years, is the struggle for power--the never-ending battle between the haves and have-nots that is the "essence of history." Six hundred years of history are broken up into manageable segments though a series of questions (spoken in a number of different voices to help distinguish them from the main narration), each of which is given a specific answer and then discussed in the context of its contemporary setting and perhaps past and future events. This is a crash course that focuses on the basics but will inspire listeners to want to know more--which is really what learning's all about. (Running time: six hours, four cassettes) --Uma Kukathas

From Publishers Weekly
This reference, intended to supplement Americans' insufficient knowledge of their country's history, lists essential people, places and dates from the New World's discovery to the Iran-Contra affair, and compares past events to those of the present.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.