Just Finished Reading: American History – A Very Short Introduction by Paul S Boyer (FP: 2012) [142pp] 

It’s been around 2 years since I read my last VSI book and I’ve been missing them. I had been planning to schedule some of them in – having acquired a small number of US related volumes – but there never seemed to be a good time, until now. Due to reading a few longer (and one or two much slower) books I found myself in a position where I was at risk of having nothing to review – at least not twice a week! So, a handful of shorter books seemed the ideal way of boosting my review pile above the Danger zone. 

Now, of course, there’s no way to do justice to any country's history in 140 pages and the author freely admits this. The plan (executed very well I might add) was to hit the highlights and, as always with these slim volumes, provide an excellent bibliography to allow the reader to dip as deeply as they wanted into the topics covered by the required broad-brush approach. Interestingly (and rather gratifyingly), the author did not start with Columbus ‘discovering’ the New World but with the initial colonisation by humans over the Berring Straight land bridge. We then essentially fast forwarded to 1763 in the first chapter and the Revolutionary Period in the second. I think this, as well as the next chapter which covered up to 1850 were the most interesting for me as this is the period of American history, I know least about. Plus, I know I had a few ancestors there at the time in both the 17th and 18th centuries, so the added context was nice. 

Anyone even generally familiar with US history will be more than aware of the topics covered in the sections on the Civil War and its aftermath as well as the move to increasing industrialisation as we entered the 20th century. Again, there should be few surprises to most readers as we follow the growing pains of what was essentially a new Global player as America moved from World War to World War, ending World War 2 as (briefly) the world’s only nuclear super power. Concentrating on the Cold War and Civil unrest brings things up to 1968 and then in the last chapter we leap to the present day of 2012 and the election of America’s first Black President. 

With the global power of American culture, most especially in cinema and TV, it’s difficult (if not actually impossible) to NOT be familiar to a large extent with the highlights of US history. For me at least I didn’t learn a great deal from this book. I’m certainly more aware of America’s very earliest years now and I’m also more aware that the myth of America is very different from its history yet that wasn’t exactly a revelation! Overall, as with the vast majority of this excellent series of books, this was a solid introduction to a much bigger subject. It gives you a ground floor foundation of knowledge on which to build if you choose to do so. MUCH more to come.