Rating: 
Summary: Rave review in ATLANTIC MONTHLY, September 1996, p. 13-18
Review: "A magisterial history.... This book takes its place in the most distinguished series in American historical scholarship, the Oxford History of the United States.... A major work, equal to its predecessors"--Jack Beatty, THE ATLANTIC MONTHL
Rating: 
Summary: Dispassionate and Thorough
Review: Another great success for the Oxford History of the United States. Patterson covers a number of controversial issues - the start of the Cold War, the Sixties, the Vietnam War - judiciously and thoroughly. Very well written, this volume highlights key issues and themes but preserves narrative scope nicely. I read this book almost immediately after finishing Kennedy's excellent Freedom from Fear, the preceding volume in this series. The combination provides a superb foundation for understanding contemporary American life.
Rating: 
Summary: A Mediocre Job
Review: Compared to the other books in this series, such as Kennedy's Freedom from Fear, this reads like a masters thesis by a lazy grad student in history. Not only does he mainly cite secondary sources (in layman's terms: he doesn't go back to the original documents he is writing about but instead quotes other people's general histories), but his interpretations are particularly trite. His chapters on John F. Kennedy are among the worst in the book. In general this book is a major embarassment to this series. And that's part of the reason you won't find very many good reviews of it by historians.I'm sure to a high school student who has never read another book on this period that the excitment of the period itself will make the book seem better than it is. For a much better treatment of this period, see Godfrey Hodgson, America in Our Time, or Richard Pollenberg, One Nation Divisible. These are among the secondary sources that Professor Patterson cites so relentlessly. If you want to learn about this period start with those books and skip Patterson.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent! I highly recommend!
Review: Grand Expectations is a consice historical reader that informs you many fold. Taking into account the many arenas politics occurs this texts breathlessly illuminates the simultaneousness of domestic, international, cultural, and social affairs jungled during 1945 - 1974.
Rating: 
Summary: A judicious account of a critical period of US History.
Review: Grand Expectations is one of the best books on American History that I have read. A very worthy addition to the "Oxford History of the United States" series, it is a judicious account of the fascinating period from the end of WWII to Nixon's resignation in 1974. My only criticism is that the years 1969 -74 were not covered in the same depth and breadth as the earlier years.Patterson not only deftly illuminates his main cultural theme - the "Grand Expectations" which the American people experienced during this period - but also the curious mixture of supreme self confidence coupled with a nagging insecurity about the "communist menace", and finally, the slow erosion of that confidence following the assassination of the Kennedy's & King, and the debacle of Viet Nam. Patterson's integration of description and analysis is seamless, his depiction of the events and people is acute, and his notes are a goldmine of sources of further reading. The book is recommended to anyone with an interest in this era.
Rating:
Summary: A judicious account of a critical period of US History.
Review: Grand Expectations is one of the best books on American History that I have read. A very worthy addition to the "Oxford History of the United States" series, it is a judicious account of the fascinating period from the end of WWII to Nixon's resignation in 1974. My only criticism is that the years 1969 -74 were not covered in the same depth and breadth as the earlier years. Patterson not only deftly illuminates his main cultural theme - the "Grand Expectations" which the American people experienced during this period - but also the curious mixture of supreme self confidence coupled with a nagging insecurity about the "communist menace", and finally, the slow erosion of that confidence following the assassination of the Kennedy's & King, and the debacle of Viet Nam. Patterson's integration of description and analysis is seamless, his depiction of the events and people is acute, and his notes are a goldmine of sources of further reading. The book is recommended to anyone with an interest in this era.
Rating:
Summary: I learned so much!
Review: I am a junior in high school and my history teacher chose this book as the text for a course in the history of the United States from WWII to Watergate. I found this book very enjoyable and easy to read. "Grand Expectations" dug deep into not only the historical facts, but the cultural vibes of our country and I learned much more than I ever had before about American life. A must-read for anyone fascinated with the second-half our tumultuous century.
Rating:
Summary: Just a Student
Review: I had to read this book for my economics class. I had to choose it, it was actually one of the most informal books I've ever read. I don't read much, but this encouraged me to read more. Patterson explained it well. I say it explained most of all America's downfalls. Everything that went wrong with our poor decision making. What I thought was very eye catching is in trhe end he make a positive statement. I'm not saying everything was negative in the book, not at all, but it makes you think. I will have to read more of Oxford History Volumes.
Rating:
Summary: Just a Student
Review: I had to read this book for my economics class. I had to choose it, it was actually one of the most informal books I've ever read. I don't read much, but this encouraged me to read more. Patterson explained it well. I say it explained most of all America's downfalls. Everything that went wrong with our poor decision making. What I thought was very eye catching is in trhe end he make a positive statement. I'm not saying everything was negative in the book, not at all, but it makes you think. I will have to read more of Oxford History Volumes.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting, readable, and careless
Review: I read Patterson's book in order to improve my general understanding of the period (1945 - 1974) that he describes. Even though I had lived through those years, I realized that my knowledge and understanding of what happened then were somewhat cursory at best. I finished the book somewhat disapppointed. For one thing, even though my knowledge of the era was limited, I easily noticed a number of surprising errors. In one egregious example, Patterson devotes a page (p. 276) to describe how `On March 1, 1954, the United States tested the world's first hydrogen bomb..'. He goes on to tell us how fallout from this test sickened crewmen on a Japanese fishing boat, and led to a public outcry. However, as he could have learned from an ordinary World Almanac, the United States tested the first hydrogen bomb in 1952, not 1954. The test he describes is actually the notorious Castle Bravo test, which did in fact occur on March 1, 1954. (The use of lithium deuteride fuel in this test led to an unpredicted secondary reaction, which in turn led the bomb to yield 15 megatons rather than the expected 6, thus endangering the Japanese fishermen, etc.) At another point (p. 669) he preposterously tells us that the phrase `acid test' dates from the mid 1960's and stems from the use of LSD during that time. He would have been well-advised to consult an ordinary dictionary before making this claim - unless, in fact, it is merely a very subtle joke on the reader. I also noticed his somewhat uncritical description of an April, 1972 bombing attack as `killing an estimated 100,000 North Vietnamese troops' (p. 758). One can only speculate on how many NVA soldiers Patterson thought were wounded in this attack, which must have marked a turning point in the history of warfare. What I found especially unsettling about this sort of thing was Patterson's claim (p. xii) - a claim I have no reason to doubt - that a number of eminent historians `read every word' of his manuscript. One wonders - didn't any of these historians remember hearing people say `acid test' before the age of LSD? (Subsequently, after whatever fact-checking the publisher found appropriate, the book appeared as Volume X in the Oxford History of the United States, and went on to win the 1997 Bancroft Prize in History.) So why, given its obvious unreliability with respect to facts, have I given this book four stars instead of one or two. In the first case, I make allowances for the sprawling unmanageability of the period, and of recent times in general. In the second case, the writing is reasonably balanced and judicious - though Patterson seems to be a liberal, he is neither hysterical nor shrilly self-righteous. Thirdly, the author has made a valiant effort to include and integrate coverage of foreign and domestic politics, the economy, social trends, popular and high culture, and so on. Finally, the book is very readable, though not nearly up to the literary level of its predecessor volume in the series, David Kennedy's distinguished Freedom From Fear: The American people in Depression and War, 1929-1945.
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