America: A Narrative History, Full Sixth Edition, Volume One

Rating:
Summary: outstanding
Review: I first encountered the Tindall/Shi American history books while a student in college. As a history major, I found that it was almost a requirement for history books to be boring. That is just not the case with this one. I would be lying if I said that there weren't parts of this book that drag, but there are parts of American history that just aren't too terribly interesting.

By and large, this narrative reads like a good novel. You are intrigued by the characters and events that shaped U.S. history, much as you would be by any number of fictional characters. And yet the narrative still manages to be detailed without overwhelming the reader too often, a nearly impossible task for history books.

The Volume One that I own is the Third Edition, and covers America's pre-colonial beginnings up through Reconstruction. I have found it to be a handy resource over the years with its recountings, not to mention the various charts and documents contained within the appendix. I doubt much has changed in subsequent editions, since the history of that era is pretty well established.