The Penguin History of the USA: New edition |
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The Penguin History of the USA: New edition
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by Hugh Brogan
Sales Rank: 38173
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List Price: $18.00
$12.24
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on 6-18-2008.
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Features
Cover Type: Paperback with 752 pages
Published by: Penguin Non-ClassicsEdition: 2nd Edition October 30, 2001
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 014025255X
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0140252552
Book Dimensions:
7.6 x 5.1 x 1.3 inches
Weighs: 1 pounds
Book Description
"A superb piece of work . . . written with grace and style." (The Sunday Times, London)
Hugh Brogan's The Penguin History of the USA has established itself as the definitive and most readable work available on America. It brilliantly captures the dynamic events and personalities that shaped the nation's triumphant progress to global superpower: in Brogan's words, "for good and evil, a power and civilization that surpasses . . . all empires of the past." In this new edition, Brogan makes numerous revisions to earlier chapters, taking into account the most up-to-date research into American history.
About The Author
Hugh Brogan worked at the Economist and was a fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge. He taught at the University of Essex until his retirement in 1998.
Reader Reviews
One of the things Americans are surprisingly good at - far better than most of the world realises - is a sense of their own history. Of course the popular understanding of the past is a bit one-sided. After all most history gets written by the winners, which means that the losers are all too often made to look like natural losers or bad guys (or both!). Nevertheless, most modern Americans get the point of the Revolutionary War, the War Between the States, the Constitution, Emancipation and so on. Things are not as transparent here in Britain. Most Brits today have only the most tenuous grasp of their own history, let alone anybody else's. Other than on the fantasy level, there is no personal involvement or commitment or even any real sense of continuity with the nation's past. Of course in one sense Britain is obsessed with history, but it is not the history of folks like you and me. Medieval aristocracy and castles may have a superficial romantic appeal, but to 95% of the UK population they are Other People's History. The pivotal events of national history: Magna Carta, Reformation, Commonwealth, Restoration, Glorious Revolution ....the list goes on and on.... are unheard of by most Britons let alone understood. If this is Britain's attitude to its own history, what will be its attitude to the history of that Great Embarrassment, the lost Atlantic empire? The answer is that America is the Bermuda Triangle of British school history, the great silent factor, the missing key to understanding every era of Britain's past since the late 16th century. And of course this generates a vicious circle: Little wonder that Britain does not understand itself (and for the record, I write as a Briton), when one of the key factors that would give coherent sense to the last four centuries is a no-go area, a field ring-fenced against popular awareness through systematic neglect by educationalists and popular publishing houses. Hugh Brogan's engrossing historical overview of America's past, from pre-history through to about 1990, has the best chance imaginable of changing this fossilised attitude. And it's a timely contribution to our understanding of the complex and threatening modern world that will be of as much value to America as it is to Britain. For a start, the book is readable. Brogan's academic credentials are impeccable, and yet unlike many academics he writes with grace, wit and considerable passion. While rarely short-changing the reader on hard facts, he never lets facts obscure the thread of the story, and that is all-important, because unless we see how one thing leads to another we will have nothing to contemplate but a bunch of meaningless facts. From the British viewpoint this is invaluable, because Brogan shows how Britain itself has been shaped by its transatlantic engagements at every key stage since the dawn of its own modern nationhood. But Britain is a side-issue. Far more importantly, Brogan has done for the United States what only a warmly sympathetic outsider can do for any country. It needs both commitment and detachment in equal parts to sketch out the key events of a nation's history (and explain their meaning) free from the agenda that everyone has when they have grown up in a country and lived its internal political and economic tensions first hand. Apart from a generally liberal worldview, Brogan has no material bias: He has no wish to perpetuate the socially divisive myths that older generations have grown up with, and yet equally no wish to tear down the essential beauties of the American dream. In short he is socially, politically and economically uninvolved, but he is nevertheless caring and deeply attached to his subject, and he is not afraid to say what he thinks. Thus whether you are American or not, this book is the ideal starting point for an honest investigation of America's - and therefore a helpful key to understanding its present.
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The Penguin History of the USA: New edition
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