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Product Description
National Geographic presents more than 500 years of American History in the authoritative, readable, and lavishly illustrated family reference work - "The Making of America". Inside these pages you'll find landmark events, social movements, fascinating facts, a great debate from each period, compelling biographies about people who have made a difference in America, discussion of the values that inspired our founders and continue to drive the nation today, detailed maps of wars, expansion of territory, movements of people, an appendix of key documents for ready reference, illustrated time lines of each period, historic art and photography to bring past events to life, comprehensive information for school reports, a multifaceted examination of the of the United States that makes for hours of browsing. Fun to read, easy to use, "The Making of America" is a must-have reference to the creation and development of America.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Pictures, illustrations, and above all maps describing frontiers, battles, territories, and key events make this book worth having a look at. Unfortunately, texts are extremely naïve, simple, and superficially patriotic. Texts seem addressed to 13 or 14-yo teenagers. What a pity.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
12 reviews
12 of 16 people found the following review helpful
A Good Overview of American History
20 Jun 2007
Format:Hardcover
The Making of America, by Robert Johnson, with a forward by Laura Bush, is a well-written picture book history of America. It includes numerous not only good history and pictures, but also unusually insightful profiles of important debates in American history, such as the Federalists versus the Anti-Federalists and the struggle over slavery culminating in Civil War.
The books includes loads of concise facts that ever American should know and profiles of important people from different aspects of American history, such as Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, Industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie and President Abraham Lincoln. It also includes important documents at the back of the book, such as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
In only 199 pages you gain a solid understanding of the making of America. Keep in mind that this book seems designed to 1) be interesting and 2) provide an excellent overview. Therefore, you will need to seek a more thorough history books for a more thorough adult history of America.
My daughter thought that the sections on the Great Depression, World War II, Cold War and post-WWII era, Civil Rights, and Mexican War were the strongest. The profiles were good. I thought the Revolutionary War era was good. My daughter thought some parts were a little disjointed, which is expected for a brief book like this. Realistically, the Civil War, including the numerous battles and politics, cannot be easily convered in a book of this size.
My daughter also liked "Don't Know Much About American History" by Kenneth Davis as a supplement. It seems more factual and has fewer pictures, so that book is geared to older kids.
The tone of "The Making of America" is optimistic, patriotic and factual. I disagree with the nagative comments posted by another reviewer. Concerning Columbus, the book tells that traditional story but also states factually the very important historical fact that "when Europeans arrived, the population of North, Central and South America was about 60 to 70 million people. Between 5 million and 15 million of them were spread throughout the land that is now Canada and the United States. Over the next four centuries, that figure fell by more than 90 percent before it began to rise again. Millions of Indians died in what many scholars, and most Native Americans, consider the greatest disaster in all history."
That is a truthful statement and a very important fact of history. Big events like that should not be supressed because someone today feels attahced to person many centuries ago. Indeed, my daughter knows many more stories about Columbus and Cortez that were left out. The coverage in this book is fair and honest.
Nobody today should be personally offended. Is anyone from 500 years ago still around? That event is a story of another time and different people. WE did not do anything.
To put this in perspective, my ancestors were Vikings, and the truth is that they could be brutal savages. I have nothing to do with what they did centuries and so take no offense with telling the entire story of the Vikings. The complete story of the Vikings is fascinating history.
In summary, this is an outstanding picture book history of America that is optimistic and engaging, unless you are an extremist and hate simple facts.
The books includes loads of concise facts that ever American should know and profiles of important people from different aspects of American history, such as Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, Industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie and President Abraham Lincoln. It also includes important documents at the back of the book, such as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
In only 199 pages you gain a solid understanding of the making of America. Keep in mind that this book seems designed to 1) be interesting and 2) provide an excellent overview. Therefore, you will need to seek a more thorough history books for a more thorough adult history of America.
My daughter thought that the sections on the Great Depression, World War II, Cold War and post-WWII era, Civil Rights, and Mexican War were the strongest. The profiles were good. I thought the Revolutionary War era was good. My daughter thought some parts were a little disjointed, which is expected for a brief book like this. Realistically, the Civil War, including the numerous battles and politics, cannot be easily convered in a book of this size.
My daughter also liked "Don't Know Much About American History" by Kenneth Davis as a supplement. It seems more factual and has fewer pictures, so that book is geared to older kids.
The tone of "The Making of America" is optimistic, patriotic and factual. I disagree with the nagative comments posted by another reviewer. Concerning Columbus, the book tells that traditional story but also states factually the very important historical fact that "when Europeans arrived, the population of North, Central and South America was about 60 to 70 million people. Between 5 million and 15 million of them were spread throughout the land that is now Canada and the United States. Over the next four centuries, that figure fell by more than 90 percent before it began to rise again. Millions of Indians died in what many scholars, and most Native Americans, consider the greatest disaster in all history."
That is a truthful statement and a very important fact of history. Big events like that should not be supressed because someone today feels attahced to person many centuries ago. Indeed, my daughter knows many more stories about Columbus and Cortez that were left out. The coverage in this book is fair and honest.
Nobody today should be personally offended. Is anyone from 500 years ago still around? That event is a story of another time and different people. WE did not do anything.
To put this in perspective, my ancestors were Vikings, and the truth is that they could be brutal savages. I have nothing to do with what they did centuries and so take no offense with telling the entire story of the Vikings. The complete story of the Vikings is fascinating history.
In summary, this is an outstanding picture book history of America that is optimistic and engaging, unless you are an extremist and hate simple facts.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Good Overview of U.S. History, Somewhat Biased
11 April 2010
Format:Hardcover
I enjoyed this book. I used it to refresh my memory of U.S. History. In that respect, it did not disappoint. I find it hard to believe that this was written for 5-8 graders. Adults could easily read the book and benefit. I did find Dr. Johnston to do a lot of editorializing, especially as it related to social issues. I would not necessarily disagree with many of his conclusoins, but I believe that he provides them at the expense of his objectivity. He doesn't gloss over the warts in our nation's past, and evidently that is a problem for some reviewers. I appreciated that fact. I thought the last couple of chapters, dealing with 1960's to present were somewhat choppy. In many cases he covered major events in less than a paragraph (i.e. Watergate). I really agonized over whether to give the book 3 stars or 4. Ultimately, I gave it 4 in order to balance out some of the negative reviews. Overall, its not a bad book, but one would definitely need to look at other sources for more indepth study.
18 of 25 people found the following review helpful
Direct and straightforward and highly readable
11 Oct 2002
Format:Hardcover
Enhanced with a Foreword by First Lady Laura Bush, The Making Of America: The History Of The United States From 1492 To The Present by historian Robert D. Johnston (Associate Professor of History and American Studies, Yale University) is an impressively written history of America ranging from Columbus' voyage through national independence, two world wars, and down to the present day. Maps, photographs, and even historical cartoons add visual impact to this direct and straightforward and highly readable historical summary, which is fascinating to simply browse through -- especially for those whose high school history classes were a long time ago.
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