America: The Last Best Hope (Volume I): From the Age of Discovery to a World at War

I like the way this book is written. It moves fast and keeps you interested, and it full of historic fact. That is why I gave 5 stars.What I do not like is my book came written in. Someone either had the book and returned it or was reading it at the warehouse and underlinded and wrote in it! While it doesn't seem like a big dealbto buy it as used at a discounted price, I paid full price.

The fact that some of the reviewers mention the "biased" nature of the book is a howl! Considering that our kids have been taught for the last 25 years everything about the negative historical facts of America, found in all countries and all human nature,and almost nothing about the uncommonly generous, humane, courageous, passionate, tolerant and justice-minded citizens who had to learn and grow in an environment and country extremely different from the one of our wealthy and educated citizens today. History is not "liberal" or "conservative." History is a compilation of facts and experience and narrative by those who were there and they were flawed individuals like all of us. A notable difference is that they didn't always have the energy for self-congratulatory liberalism of today, since, unlike most today, their main focus was to literally survive a very tough life for themselves and their family. It's one thing to sit in a warm college for 5 years talking about "cathedral forests," its quite another to have 6 kids and needing to cut down trees to plant food and build shelters. One is not "better" than the other - life circumstances dictate behavior. That was a time; that is history; not good, not bad, not liberal, not conservative, just people struggling along toward enlightenment and hope for the generations to come. (You know, serious things, like enabling thousands of over-privileged teenagers and liberal college kids to go to Cancun or Florida on spring break every year, while they bitch about their country.) History and one of its researchers/authors - shall it be squelched (or damned with faint praise) if it doesn't agree with your politics? I think not. And to even bring up Bennett's gambling problem in a book review is typical hypocritical behavior of so many liberals who claim superior tolerance and love of diversity. My, my, my - how mean-spirited!

This first volume provides the wonderful story of our heritage. Mr. Bennett writes in such a way that captures and holds my attention. I love studying American history and this provided me with a well-researched, interesting, and not at all dry or boring read. I believe that we have the responsibility of sharing America's story with future generations. Hopefully, the freedoms that we have enjoyed these many years, which were heroically fought for and won at great cost, will never be taken for granted. IAs for the company from where I bought the book from, well, their service was top-notch. The book arrived promptly. Not only that, but it was wrapped so professionally, with such unbelievable quality and care, that I thought that I had received a museum piece or an expensive gift from someone. Wow! What an absolute delight to be treated like that!

An excellent narrative of American history up until WWI. The story is engaging and flows well. A lot of stories were included that I hadn't heard before, and it was nice to have stories about religion included as well. And no, they were not all "yeah, Protestantism" and "boo, [everybody else]". The emphasis is placed on religious toleration and diversity rather than the superiority of any one religion. However I did have a few complaints. First the treatment of Native Americans is very poor. Maybe two Native American leaders are mentioned in the whole book, and usually the author didn't even mention tribes by name - it was just "Indians". Also, every time the "Indians" did something it was due to the manipulations of the British, not due to any legitimate grievances of their own. Second on the slavery issue practically all the white Christians are exonerated, except for a few bad folks in the South, and all the blame of slavery is placed on Muslims. A few primary sources are given by Muslims of the day that are pro-slavery as a religion obligation. None are given against slavery. Third, if you look at the notes in the back, you will see that almost every single endnote citation is of a secondary source. Who knows where the original authors got their info? Plus a lot of statements regarding what people were thinking or feeling at the time are not cited at all. So this huge book is interesting to read, but it will not be of any actual value to history students due to its poor foundation. The narrative is good, but the history is poor.

This is an excellent history well written and easy to follow with enough to challenge you while entertaining at the same time and along the way I can almost guarantee that most of you will learn fascinating things you had never read before. it provides you with the balance and perspective I find indispensable for learning from history. While it deals with the major issues, it also has little stories that flesh out the key individuals. It would be a fine book to use in a history class that would give you solid material for class discussions but the teacher would have to create his or her own material to supplement it. I thoroughly enjoyed it.