America, Empire of Liberty: A New History of the United States 1st Edition, Kindle Edition

This is an excellent narrative overview of American history from the beginnings to late 2008. The author covers a lot of ground but gives more emphasis to the 20th century as major events and cultural movements then shaped America today. He weaves his narrative together with three themes: empire, liberty and faith. The book explores how the American people shaped their story and confronted the paradoxes inherent in these three themes.As the author admitted, this is written from an outsider's perspective. While the book does cover native americans, sexual revolution, civil rights, etc., it does not pay homage to the liberal agenda. Some reviewers complain that this constitutes a bias towards "landed white guys". Actually this is part of the outsider's perspective. The narrative of American history has been dominated by the liberal establishment since the culture wars of the 1990s. I find it refreshing to read a history book that actually focuses on history rather than political correctness.

Important to understand our history -- more truthful I believe than history books about America I've read in the past.

This book was required for a History class I took in the Spring. It was informative and pretty easy to read through even though it is a thick book which intimidates a lot of people. I would recommend it to someone if they want a quick lesson on American history post Civil War to now.

First rate scholarship and written in an a page turner readable popular style, Reynolds stands beside Zinn and Huberman as the historians who are today's must reads. The American myths that we we were taught in school give way to a better and more accurate presentation of Empire Sprawl as we conquered a continent.

This very rapid and not particularly insightful trip through our nation's history seems to be a story without a theme. There is much to anticipate in this book. The author is British and teaches history at Cambridge. He also has won the prestigious Wolfson prize, awarded annually for the best history book in the United Kingdom. Nevertheless, this book tackles a huge, complex subject, the broad sweep of American history, and recites events familiar to the casual student of our history without any novel insights or themes. The Revolution is dismissed in four pages, the Civil War in ten, World War I is hardly discussed and the victory is awarded to the British forces, stalemated until the American Expeditionary Forces were injected into the War in 1917, and World War II is finished in five pages. It is difficult, indeed, to say anything meaningful or novel about these monumental pivot points in American history in such a short space. I am all for brevity but this is brevity brought to the border of superficiality.History written to illuminate a particular theme can be absorbing and challenging. Frequently, it can shape new ideas about what were previously known facts. This is what I had expected from this book but there is little of this here. We know that Americans are religious, hard-working, lovers of liberty, and relatively young. Each of these is discussed briefly without any new conclusions.But our tour guide presents a breezy and fast-moving review of American history. I had been looking for something more than a review: I wanted fresh insights and a different slant. Sadly, America, Empire of Liberty disappoints in this.

Great, easy to read and follow. Factual. Informational. Great price.

Great boook, superfast delivery, and book was NOT as described....it was better!!!!!!!!, it was literally BRAND NEW, no damage, no water stains, no increase, absolutely nothing buth Perfrction

I didn't struggle with zoning out as much as with other history books! That's quite something.