Kkasino wrote:dsheinem wrote:
Kkasino, it would be helpful if you could say more about what you want out of the book.
Basically book (or books) about USA history, it don't have to be just one book or books from just one author.Ds and I both want to know if you're interested in specific aspects of US history though! Domestic and international politics, military history, indigenous peoples history, the Civil Rights movements of various minorities, scientific discoveries, mass communication and entertainment, art, etc. Is there a particular angle you want to explore?
At first i wanted book just about racism/Civil rights, but now i want more general book - politic/military/sciene etc. (I don't mind more books, each one about different topics)
And sorry for my poor english, i understand well but my sentence construction is pretty bad.
No worries. You're in Eastern Europe, aren't you? We've had worse on here, trust me. Heck, I know Americans who can't properly construct a sentence in English.
Anyway, if you want more and more books on different topics...hmm...
CIVIL RIGHTS
From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality by Michael J. Klarman - covers the Supreme Court(our highest judicial body) and its attitudes towards race in its rulings from the late 19th century into the Civil Rights era of the 1960s.
An Idea Whose Time Has Come by Todd S. Purdum - covers the Civil Rights Act of 1964 through the eyes of a respected journalist as he looks back on it 50 years after its passing.
The King Years: Historic Moments in the Civil Rights Movement by Taylor Branch. This is a condensed version of Branch's three previous works on the Civil Rights era, Parting the Waters, Pillar of Fire, and At Canaan's Edge.
ART & FILM
Twentieth-Century American Art by Erika Doss - This covers a wide range of American artistic movements, including counter-culture art movements and public controversies surrounding arts funding.
Hollywood's America: Twentieth-Century America Through Film edited by Steven Mintz and Randy W. Roberts - Offers a series of essays on different aspects of film in the US. Make sure to get the most recent edition, published in 2010.
Movie-Made America: A Cultural History of American Movies by Robert Sklar - This is a view on American cultural history via filmmaking, and how our films reflect our society. It's a little out of date now, considering it is 20 years old, but worth checking out.
WAR
The Forgotten War: America in Korea, 1950-1953 by Clay Blair - This is the best book on the Korean War there is in my opinion. It's the first real bloody conflict of the Cold War but one often not emphasized in American history.
Vietnam: A History by Stanley Karnow - I've read a lot of books on the Vietnam War, and I really like this one(as much as one can like a book about the Vietnam War). This book does its best to explain both sides of the conflict and offers some excellent material, though at times it is definitely more of a journalistic endeavor than a historical or military textbook. If you want accurate accounts of battles and strategy, this isn't it.
The Cold War: A New History by John Lewis Gaddis - Gaddis does his best to give a balanced perspective on the history of the Cold War but points out how key individuals influenced it and how various peoples ultimately brought about its end.
A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide by Samantha Power - Power examines the relationship and responses of America to multiple genocides in the 20th century. If you want a short explanation of what she covers: we don't tend to react much unless our specific interests are threatened. Then again, neither does the rest of the world.
POLITICS
We the People by Thomas Patterson - Patterson gives a balanced view on the modern American political system and how it came about.
Perspectives on American Politics by William Lasser - This book is designed to supplement government textbooks in schools and reflects the primary chapters of such books. It provides essays on the development of the political system, ongoing issues and controversies, what it is like within the political system, and where we stand today.
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Truth be told, this is all just a small slice of what American history is like in the 20th century, and there are hundreds of other books that cover even more topics, such as Conservatism vs. Liberalism and how their modern incarnations came about in our political system, different aspects of government, economic history of the US, biographies of particular individuals, defining moments that shaped our history(such as the Watergate scandal for President Nixon, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the Great Depression), sports history in the United States(from the formation of baseball to Cassius Clay becoming Muhammad Ali), the history of corporations like Ford, Atari, and Microsoft, and so on. There's a hell of a lot to read.
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