Don't Know Much About History: Everything You Need to Know About American History but Never...

Don't Know Much About History: Everything You Need to Know About American History but Never Learned (Don't ... | Kenneth C. Davis | Don't Know Much About History

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Don't Know Much Ab...

	Don't Know Much About History: Everything You Need to Know About American History but Never Learned (Don't ... Kenneth C. Davis HarperCollins, 2004 - 678 pages average customer review:based on 157 reviews view larger image
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Overall very strong on historical facts, definitely a lot of fun

I don't know if this is one of the essential historical works, but it is definitely one of the most fun. Kenneth Davis strives to provide a remarkably comprehensive and centrist survey of American history by addressing a series of questions that structure the work as a whole. For the most part, he articulates the standard current few of the various figures he treats.

All major periods in American history are treated well and in pretty good detail. Because I've been a pretty intent student of American history for some time, I'm not sure that I learned all that much, but I did find it to be a great review session. One of the things that I liked most about the book was the "Must Read" recommendations where Davis indicates books that simply must be read. I had actually read about half of these, but I've added several titles to my rather cumbersome reading lists.

The one place where Davis lapses a bit, I thought, was dealing with the Clinton years. Truth be told, in a book like this it is probably a mistake to examine recent history. We are too much influenced by the mood of the moment. Most careful writing about the Clinton years has revealed how embattled he was, not how awful he was. Davis's assessment of Clinton was, in fact, remarkably ill-informed, and he cites as "Must Reads" some very odd titles indeed, while ignoring most of the best books on that decade (i.e., that were written before the latest edition of the book). The view of Clinton that prevailed circa 1998-2002 is quickly fading from view. In GREATNESS IN THE WHITE HOUSE, Murray and Blessing convincingly argue that evaluations of presidents over time tend to deemphasize the force of their personality and linger over their actual achievements. This is why for most scholars Reagan's reputation is steadily fading, despite the almost overwhelming force of his personality at the time. During the nineties many--and David is guilty of this--obsessed over Clinton's actual or supposed crimes and failed to evaluate Clinton over the actual achievements of his administration. I do not believe Clinton to be a great president, but neither do I view him as a bad one. In future editions of his books, I would prefer seeing Davis stop twenty years from the time of the revision.

One other issue: bias. In many of the reviews here one seems mention of bias. Interestingly, most scholars quite rightly ignore issues of bias. But to the poorly education, bias seems to be an issue of overwhelming gravity. The truth is that honest scholarship truly is possible, and while everyone has a point of view, having a point of view doesn't mean that you actively engage in twisting facts. A recent surprising example was Conrad Black's biography of F.D.R. Though Black is himself quite conservative politically, his biography of Roosevelt is quite balanced and fair. In other words, he doesn't skew the facts to fit his own political beliefs. There are books where authors ignore the facts of history (Ann Coulter's TREASON is merely one example--and by "facts" I really do mean events that any minimally rational person will agree on), but the truth is that most books do not. Daniel Boorstin is a conservative historian, but he doesn't write every book with a conservative axe to grind. Someone with left-leaning politics isn't necessarily skewing everything to his position. Not everyone writes with an agenda (say, like Coulter does) and many write merely to narrate history. I think that is what Kenneth Davis does here. Myself, I think the temptation to talk about "bias" at the drop of a hat is misguided and should in general be jettisoned. I'd prefer to focus on whether a historical narrative is accurate or not.

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Don't Know Much About History

Short, concise, and to the point chapters. Great wealth of knowledge and trivia.

Interesting, Informative, but Biased

This is a fun book to read and has the ability to educate to a limited degree. It is also very biased. It should probably be called the 'Politically Correct Guide to American History'.

It covers a wide range of events in U.S. history from the earliest explorers to the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Potential readers should be aware that the writer has a very leftist slant to his presentation.

To be fair, history is one of those topics that is typically influenced heavily by the writer's perspective. Mr. Davis takes his liberal evangelistic crusade seriously and includes his biases in virtually every historical era covered.

A few examples of this are outlined below:

The author practically deifies Franklin Roosevelt. Anyone who has any grasp of history at all knows that Mr. Roosevelt sold out eastern Europe and much of Asia to the Soviets causing decades of tyranny and misery for the inhabitants of those nations. His 'New Deal' has also been a major cause of problems for countless Americans by making them dependent upon Big Brother. Probably no other administration deserves as much scorn as does that of Roosevelt for the creation of the welfare state.

One of the most blatant areas of bias and flat out dishonesty is found on page 584. In discussing America at the year 2000, Davis claims: "America's poorest children have a lower standard of living than those in the bottom 10 percent of any other nation except Britain." It is rare to see such a total falsehood in print. Even the most biased writers usually try to be a bit more subtle with their phony claims. Anyone who has ever traveled outside of the United States knows that Davis' statement is false. To give him the benefit of the doubt, I suppose it is possible that he has never traveled anywhere and doesn't know any better, but I doubt it. If that is the case, he shouldn't be making such bogus claims.

Another example of the bias throughout this book is his claim that 'serious black scholars' feel that the U.S. should pay reparations to descendants of American slaves. This is perhaps one of the looniest of modern issues. It is an effort to take money from those who never had slaves to give to those who never were slaves.

In spite of the bias throughout, this is an entertaining book with lots of good information. The author should work hard to improve future editions by eliminating a big chunk of his bias. If that were done, this would deserve a significantly higher rating.

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Presidential Facts Not Normally Aired.

Little known facts about the Presidency:

Prior to the evolution of a clear two-party system and separate election of the President and the Vice-President, there were often three or four contenders for the presidency, often from the same party. The most famous instance of this came in 1800. Jefferson, who was unofficially his party's candidate for President, and Burr, both Democratic-Republicans, tied with 73 electoral votes. The two opposing Federalist candidates, John Adams and Charles C. Pinckney trailed with 65 and 64 respectively. The election was decided in the House of Representatives in the so-called Revolution of 1800.

In the 1824 election, there were four legitimate candidates for the presidency: John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay and William H. Crawford. Jackson won the most popular and electoral votes, but lacked the majority of electoral votes needed. The election was thrown to the House of Representatives, which went for Jon=hn Quincy Adams when Clay as powerful House leader, threw his support to the New Englander in the so-called Corrupt Bargain. At least, it wasn't decided by a biased Supreme Court Judge, as in the Gore/Bush fiasco.

On Harrison's death of pneumonia a few months after his inauguration, Tyler became the first Vice-President to succeed to the office due to the death of a sitting President. Tyler kept Harrison's Cabinet, but named no new Vice-President. There was no constitutional provision for replacing a Vice-President until ratification of the 25th Amendment in 1967.

Abraham Lincoln failed in business 1831 and again in 1833. In the meantime, he ran for state legislator and lost. His sweetheart died in 1835, and he had a nervous breakdown the next year. He lost the nomination to Congress in 1843, was defeated again for Congress in 1848 and 1855 and lost the vice presidency of the United States in 1856. Then he ran for Senator in 1858 and lost. In 1860 Abe Lincoln was elected president of the United States. The rest is history.

In the election of 1888, Cleveland won the popular vote with 448.6 percent of the votes cast, but lost the election in the electoral college, where Harrison won 233-168. They tried to claim that with Bush, but he was given the election by another Republican.

In 1960 (when Jeff and John, Jr. were born), John F. Kennedy beat Nixon by the slimmest of margins (except for Gore's non-"win" against Bush), 118,574 vote difference.

After Nixon's V.P had to resign because of tax fraud when he had been the former governor of Maryland, Ford was chosen as Vice-President. Ford succeeded Nixon following his resignation in the wake of the Watergate scandal. Nelson Rockefeller of New York was appointed V.P. by Ford under the 25th Amendment.

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