Rating: 
Summary: Mixed bag of history
Review: This is not a book to read cover to cover, rather I found it entertaining to pick a section almost at random. Read about log cabin construction on the Ohio frontier. Or Grant's own recollection of Lee's surrender. Or of T Roosevelt's family horse play (literally) in the White House. For those of us who do not get a chance to view original material, this book is fun.
Rating: 
Summary: Zero Stars
Review: This one is so terrible that it begs for a zero star rating. The authors are post modernist egalitarians who try desperately to create a bridge between the Founding Fathers and the disaster known as the 60's Revolution - all the while trying to celebrate the debacle with the reader. Really Horrible! Do yourself a favor and pass on this one.
Rating: 
Summary: A truly inspiring work to be explored
Review: When we learn of history, either that of the United States or the world, we more often than not hear it in the voice of someone who happens to have a degree in history and was born tens, hundreds, or even thousands of years after the events described in their work. Witness is a unique opportunity to see history through history's eyes. The pieces chosen necessarily reflect upon the times we live in now, but their meanings are left to the readers to ultimately determine for themselves. Ambrose and Brinkley provide a collection that should be passed down to succeeding generations of Americans so that they may have a glimpse of where Americans have been and where they may chose to go in the future.
Rating:
Summary: A truly inspiring work to be explored
Review: When we learn of history, either that of the United States or the world, we more often than not hear it in the voice of someone who happens to have a degree in history and was born tens, hundreds, or even thousands of years after the events described in their work. Witness is a unique opportunity to see history through history's eyes. The pieces chosen necessarily reflect upon the times we live in now, but their meanings are left to the readers to ultimately determine for themselves. Ambrose and Brinkley provide a collection that should be passed down to succeeding generations of Americans so that they may have a glimpse of where Americans have been and where they may chose to go in the future.
Rating: 
Summary: Source book for contemporaneous witness to historical events
Review: You have to understand what this book is before you can decide whether it will be of use to you. It is not a comprehensive history of the United States as told by Stephen Ambrose and Douglass Brinkley. Rather, it is a collection of 170 articles or vignettes on different, mostly well-known, events in American History. These articles are writings contemporaneous with the events described. There are also many illustrations and photographs and a really interesting audio CD with a number of selections dramatically recreated and some of them audio with the actual participants. Stephen Ambrose and Douglass Brinkley have based their text on previous edition done by Henry Steele Commager and Allan Nevins. Because these are selections and usually only one perspective is given of each event (editors always have to balance sweep and perspective with limited space), the viewpoints presented may differ with your own. However, I find the value of contemporary perspective quite valuable - especially in teaching my children. I can balance an bias I see with other books and by delving more deeply into the event described. But these articles make a great jumping off point. There is a bibliography providing the sources of each article, but there is not an index. Because of the nature of this book, the table of contents and the bibliography are probably enough.
Rating:
Summary: Source book for contemporaneous witness to historical events
Review: You have to understand what this book is before you can decide whether it will be of use to you. It is not a comprehensive history of the United States as told by Stephen Ambrose and Douglass Brinkley. Rather, it is a collection of 170 articles or vignettes on different, mostly well-known, events in American History. These articles are writings contemporaneous with the events described. There are also many illustrations and photographs and a really interesting audio CD with a number of selections dramatically recreated and some of them audio with the actual participants. Stephen Ambrose and Douglass Brinkley have based their text on previous edition done by Henry Steele Commager and Allan Nevins. Because these are selections and usually only one perspective is given of each event (editors always have to balance sweep and perspective with limited space), the viewpoints presented may differ with your own. However, I find the value of contemporary perspective quite valuable - especially in teaching my children. I can balance an bias I see with other books and by delving more deeply into the event described. But these articles make a great jumping off point. There is a bibliography providing the sources of each article, but there is not an index. Because of the nature of this book, the table of contents and the bibliography are probably enough.
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