U.S. History
The US History text is organized into 32 chapters that adequately present an outline of American history from pre-contact to 2014. The book is also easily adaptable to the two US History survey structure most colleges and universities follow. While no two instructors will agree on the level of detail aspects of US history should receive, this text does to a nice job of presenting a useful narrative supported by ancillaries that include: brief chapter timelines, sidebars (Americana, Defining America, and My Story), images, maps, web links, section-level objectives (that correspond to lower level of Bloom’s Taxonomy), bold-faced key terms, section summaries, and objective and essay review questions.
The appendices include: The Declaration of Independence, The US Constitution, Presidents of the US, a political and topographical map, a population chart, and a list of suggested readings. In all, the appendices offer significantly less than many traditional US History textbooks provide.
The text also includes a glossary with hyper-links to the terms’ mention in the text. The glossary is, however, significantly less robust than many other textbooks provide.
The text reflects a middle-of-the-road contemporary interpretation of US history. I did not see any glaring factual errors in the text (nor would I expect to). I think that people can argue about the balance and emphasis of any text, but I thought overall this book is balanced. Having said that, in places I did question the emphasis of certain aspects of the interpretation. For example, in discussing the home front during World War I, a lot of space is devoted to discussing those who opposed the draft and the ramification of doing so, while little was mentioned of the overwhelming support of the war illustrated by a general compliance to the selective service act (and other factors).
This book is current as of 2014. Like any history text that runs up to contemporary times, the last chapter of the book will need to be continually updated.
I thought the writing in the text is one of the strong points. Although the writing is broken up by ancillaries, headings, and subheadings an engaging narrative still drives the book. The book is easy to follow and has a nice flow to it.
The text is written at what appears to me to be a higher reading level than the book I am currently using (Faragher, OUT OF MANY – Brief edition). Because I teach in an open-enrollment community college environment, this might present challenges for me and others teaching in a similar environment.
I did not note any changes in writing styles of significant variations in chapter length (although like all textbooks, some chapters are a bit longer than others). I also thought that the ancillaries brought a consistency to the text from chapter to chapter.
I do think that the authors do a nice job providing context where needed to allow students to pick up in 1877 and make sense of the content. Further, many of the chapters or sections can stand on their own if an instructor wanted to assign parts and pieces of the text.
I did notice that this books appears dense in places and there are multiple examples of pages of text not broken up by images or interactives. In this sense, my current text does a nice better job of providing a presentation that is not intimidating for students.
For the most part the text is logically organized and well suited to work for institutions that split the US survey in 1877. The first 16 chapters run from pre-contact to Reconstruction, while the remaining 16 chapters run from 1877 to 2014. If your course is split in 1865, as it currently is at my institution, the chapter organization presents a problem with 15 chapters in the first half of the survey and 17 in the second half. If we adopt this book, we will likely adjust our survey courses so they splint in 1877.
At the chapter level, the content is organized into the 32 chapters in a logical fashion for the most part. There are, however, some curiosities. The most puzzling to me is the treatment of Manifest Destiny. While the text does discuss 1840s expansion in chapter 11: “A Nation on the Move: Westward Expansion, 1800-1850,” nowhere in that chapter is the term Manifest Destiny introduced even though it was coined in connection with a debate to annex Texas in 1845 (which is addressed). Later in chapter 17: “Go West Young Man! Westward Expansion, 1840-1900,” the term Manifest Destiny is introduced and rightly – although briefly – associated with the acquisition of Texas. The issue is that this mention comes in a chapter that falls in the second half of the course and not associated in the section of the course that covers the 1840s (a period more commonly associated with the concept of Manifest Destiny in US history). Further, students using the index to search for “Manifest Destiny” are taken to Chapter 17, and not chapter 14.
Additional aspects of the organization that I question include: separating out the Revolutionary War into a separate chapter from the larger Revolution, and dividing the treatment of the Great Depression into a chapter focusing on the Hoover administration and one focusing on Roosevelt’s New Deal.
The organization within chapters is driven by well-designed sections and subsections and will, in my opinion, serve students well. I did think it is odd, however, that the chapters have introductions that sit before and outside of the chapter sections, but no conclusions.
By far the most disappointing aspect of this text is the interface. Students can view the text online, as a PDF, or download an iBook for a minor charge. I reviewed the interface in all three versions of the text and feel that the iBook version offers the best user experience, but one that still falls below basic expectations. Here are a couple of frustrations:
• Key Terms: while the iBook offers pop-up definitions to bold-face key terms, the PDF and online version do not. To find the pull-out definition in these other formats, students must scroll to the end of the chapter.
• Images and Maps: More disappointing are the images, cartoons, and maps. In most cases the images are too small to see important details. In the online and PDF versions of the text, they cannot be expanded. In the iBook version students can click to expand the images by 50% - but it only stretches the image and makes it less legible. While the authors have selected useful political cartoons, the images are reproduced in such a way that make it impossible to students to read the text to fully understand the messages. Two of many examples of this short coming are: figure 11.19 (page 328) and figure 12.18 (page 363). An example of a map that cannot be read at all, see figure 23.16 (page 682).
• Look and Feel: The look and feel of this text is bland and will not compare well to other fee-based print or online textbooks. Further, it may feel dated and clunky to our students who are often times use to slick, interactive interfaces in other aspects of their lives.
• Interactives: Beyond the chapter review questions (of which only ½ have answers), and the option to be launched into content-related web sites, there is no interactivity in this text.
On the positive side, students are able to highlight section of text in both the PDF and iBook version of the text. Additionally, the iBook version offers its standard functionality that allows readers to create note cards.
I did not notice any grammatical issues.
This text does a nice job of reflecting a relatively current and inclusive interpretation of US history. In all places where I expected to see inclusive discussions, I found them.
I think that the cost saving students will realize with this book are significant and clearly the most compelling reason to adopt this text. Doing so, however, brings some draw backs and perhaps challenges for our students.