Rating: 
Summary: The rest of the story
Review: For anyone who was fed the standard version of American History in school, this book will be a refreshing eye-opener. His narrative is much more gripping and readable than most textbooks, and he presents information that casts a different light on many events, situations, and characters in American history, shattering the standard myths. This is historical revisionism at its finest. Johnson tells the rest of the story behind the League of Nations (opponents weren't necessarily isolationist) the crash of '29 (and how the interventionism of Hoover and FDR made the subsequent depression into the disaster it was) Eisenhower (the workaholic president who pretended to be lazy) and many other misunderstood matters. Some high schools use this as a US History textbook, and it is a wise choice for the purpose.
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Summary: Refreshing look at the USA
Review: First, to almost everyone who has posted something, contray to what most high school history teachers "teach", history is not about facts and dates. The study of history is about how people interpret facts to develop opinions of the past. All good historians write with the goal of developing an opinion of history and supporting it with facts. For a person to dismiss a piece of historical writing as biased or subjective merely shows that person's ignorance and closed-mindedness. Anyone desiring to expand their historical understanding should seek out as many different historical viewpoints as possible. The diffenece between a good historian and a poor historian is that the good historian's thesis is clear from the first paragraph, giving the intelligent reader an insight into the writer's "bias," while a poor historian hides behind the veil of "objective" history displayed in texts such as high school textbooks, the most inaccurate and irresponsible historical writing one can find. Paul Johnson's book is an example of the former. It is a refreshingly optimistic approach to US history, something the history profession had been lacking since the 1960s. It is very enjoyable and insightful. So what if his take on American history does not fit with the standard left-wing intellectual historical interpretations that are often passed for "fact." The whole idea of "left-wing" and "right-wing" is meanless anyway. I don't always agree with Johnson (Nixon for example), though sometimes I do (FDR); but it is refreshing to read something a little different than the standard "objective" drivel. Differing opinions are one of the many things that made the USA a great country. And it is a great country. If it wasn't, people would not have been risking everything to come here in the 1620s! Johnson looks at the United States a work in progress, still struggling to create the society dreamed of in the Declaration of Independence. Unlike so many historians who dwell on the evils of the past, Johnson sees the past as a sign that the United States is heading in the right direction and getting better all of the time. And I agree.
Rating: 
Summary: HAHAHA
Review: I spend my summer reading the book, and Paul's unrelenting effords to uncover the mystic journey of the Republic were fascinating and satisifying. Organized loosely into five chapters, the book flows smoothly with intertwining themes. It's not a "balanced" and rigid text book, but a fairytale full of fahterly advice about morality and justice. And Stories about artists, architecture, writers, businessmen, politicians, scientists weave together a most colorful and fun-to-look-at USA hall-of-fame. BUT: Criticisms for FDR and fondness towards Reagen, though entertaining, seemed like sections from British tabloids.
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Summary: Solid survey of American History from Conservative Angle
Review: This is a very comprehensive and detailed survey of 400 years of American History from a clearly conservative right-wing standpoint. As noted by several reviewers, the coverage of the last 50 years was not at the same level of objectivity as the rest of the book. I found it to be very useful...highly recommended for anyone who enjoys studying our heritage and how we got here.
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Summary: Great primer
Review: Johnson does an excellent job of telling a story spanning 400 years of American History in best style of a tribal elder. The book is quite objective and balanced, eventhough, PJ does not shy from showing his preferences, particularly in the 20th century. I would have given it 5 stars but for the post Nixon period which I did not consider at the same level as the rest of the book.
Rating: 
Summary: At least he writes well
Review: I was really disappointed in this book's treatment of the past 50 years in American history, and found enough inaccuracies throughout the book that I tend to doubt most of what the author says.
Political correctness is alive and well in the conservative world, and Johnson demonstrates his grasp of this in his portraits of the presidencies of LBJ, Kennedy, and Nixon, to name a few. I was hoping for and expecting a neutral viewpoint, rather than an ideological right-or-left wing perspective. Unfortunately, that's not what I got.
3 stars for readability, 1 for accuracy, 0 for his opinion.
Rating: 
Summary: The worst History book I have ever read
Review: History means objectivity. This book is full of subjective statements about facts, wrong or inexistent documentation in many of its assertions, and a clear bias in its writing. Paul Johnson tries to convince us that the History of the U.S. has been a difficult journey with a magical, divine end. Statements like 'for the first time in human history', 'the most important achievement of mankind', 'unknown in the rest of the world' abound.
I was looking forward to finishing the book already after twenty pages. I would rather call this book 'Stories of the American people'. Let us be serious.
I recommend the book as a good background reading before watching 'Independence day', or as a complement of Henry Kissinger's memoirs.
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Summary: A sprawling, spectacular survey of what makes America tick
Review: What a fantastic journey! Paul Johnson's masterful telling of the American story has a scope and a beauty I was not anticipating. Most American histories seem to revel in deconstructing and undermining its proud achievements and remarkable individuals, yet Johnson, while fully acknowledging the dark areas of our past, boldly celebrates what it is that makes America great, without apology or qualification. His presentation of The United States of America as a largely positive force in world history is a radical, almost heretical, concept to those who would prefer to reinvent it as some kind of imperialistic scourge. Disregard some of the charges you may have read in other reviews that this book is merely some kind of conservative "political tract". The wrath of the left is usually incurred whenever FDR and JFK are not portrayed as Solomonic demi-gods. As to the charge that Republicans are safe from Johnson's critique, skeptics should re-read the sections on Hoover and Reagan. Reagan, while given genuine credit for his successes, certainly did not come off as the mythic, infallible figure conservatives are constantly accused of enshrining. What I apprecated most about "A History of the American People" was Johnson's willingness to diverge from governmental politics and explore the areas of emerging American culture (such as literature, architecture, industry and music) as well as the lives of average American citizens, or "the teeming masses" as some would say. Far from being ignored (as some reviewers have charged), the average, everyday Americans are a constant presence throughout Johnson's book...like a faint, but steady, pulse beat. While most of the book DOES focus upon noteable individuals, Johnson takes generous amounts of time to put his finger on the pulse of American society. The dreams, follies, philosophies and tragedies of the American people as a whole are vividly and poignantly captured by Johnson on a regular basis. This book gets my highest possible recommendation. It is the first history of Johnson's that I have read, but certainly not the last.
Rating: 
Summary: Begins as history, ends as a conservative political tract
Review: This book gives a reasonably good overview of early american history until it reaches the 20th century, and then Johnson destroys his credibility by becoming a conservative apologist. Roosevelt, Kennedy, Johnson and Clinton are demonized, while Nixon and Reagan are portrayed as giants or viticms of the left-wing media. One of the most striking examples of this is Johnson's account of Watergate. He describes it all as a left-wing witchhunt, led by Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee, who Johnson believes let his paper pursue the story because he had a personal vendetta against Nixon. Johnson does not mention any of the illegal activities committed by some of Nixon's top aides, the destruction of evidence by the acting director of the FBI, etc., and at the same claims that reporters must have broken the law to obtain the information they got. He portays the incident as a story with no substance that was that was blown out of proportion by the press and a Democratic congress, dimissing the entire affair as "American juvenalia". While historians should certainly include their own opinions in their writing, hiding or distorting the facts to support their opinions is simply dishonest. I would not recommend this book to anyone who has not already obtained the facts of American history elsewhere.
Rating:
Summary: A Facinating View But Not For Beginners
Review: As with all his books of history, Paul Johnson's great strength is his ability to show the characters of history as live people with strengths and weaknesses. His very British prose style makes for enjoyable reading. I would not recommend this book for beginners without a background in American history anymore than I would a left wing history of the U.S. because Johnson's opinions are so strong that the book occassionally lacks objectivity. I found myself agreeing more with his views of the 19th and 18th centuries than with the 20th. His description of Lincoln as a "kind of moral genius" is poetic and apt. His high regard for the framers of the Constitution is a welcome respite from the annoying revisionism which has pervaded history in recent years. He is very good at debunking myth. Thus the idea of the "robber barron" is deconstructed to some extent. In the 20th century, I find myself in disagreement with him often. There is nothing wrong with cutting FDR down to size. His reputation is so overblown that it needs paring. But he dismisses one of our greatest Presidents as a frivilous man and blames him for every mistake of his time while giving him little or no credit for his depression and wartime leadership. This is unfair. On a broader level, he seems to dismiss the entire progressive era of American history as either mistaken or irrelevant. Although acknowledging the need for reforms in the post war period in the area of civil rights, he dwells on the negatives while largely failing to note the almost revolutionary change in the treatment of blacks in this country.
In short, the book is written from the perspective of a conservative ideologue and it hurts his analysis in some cases. I enjoyed the book enormously but did not find it as good an analysis as I did "Modern Times", his fabulous history of the 20th Century.
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