Product Description
Supported by colorful anecdotes, first-person quotations, and its trademark wit, The American Pageant is one of the most readable, popular, and effective American history textbooks available. Pedagogy includes chapter-ending chronologies, numerous interesting quotes from historical figures, and incisive part openers that contextualize six major periods in American history. The Appendix includes "Suggested Readings" for every chapter, an annotated Constitution of the United States, and an extensive statistical profile of the United States.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 3.5 based on 74 reviews)

Biased and narrow

I teach AP and Dual Credit classes and inherited this book when I joined the district. I flipped through out of curiosity before school started and found it to be a typical high school text book. Getting into the year, my students came into tutoring with questions about the book, specifically the text. They couldn't understand it and after I started reading it closer, I realized I had trouble reading it. The text is confusing and overly complex. It is designed for AP students in high school, but it fails in its goal.

The book does cover several points very well (founding fathers, early republic), but it is narrow in scope and unimaginably biased for our country on many other points (Slavery, treatment of Native Americans). I assigned Howard Zinn in an effort to balance the textbook. According to the book, our country has never made a mistake and blames the world for everything that has gone wrong. The book also concentrates on New England and the Eastern states at the expense of the rest of the country. The original 13 colonies are glorified ad nauseum while the rest of the states are mentioned only when necessary.

This book misses the mark on several occasions, especially pivotal events such as the World Wars and more importantly, the Holocaust. I understand the AP exam is biased against war, but to understand what is occurring in America, both world wars must be discussed in more detail.

America and Americans do not live in a vacuum, as much as many or us think we do.
April 21, 2008

easy to read but too much useless info

I can honestly say that reading/learning this book thoroughly helped me get a 4 on the AP exam. It was easy to read too.

However, it was pretty annoying to sift through A LOT of useless information in the book. There was one chapter where they took up a fourth of a page to describe Andrew Jackson's HAIR COLOR and physical features.

In the chapter about the salem witch trials, they actually felt it necessary to tell you that 2 dogs died in the witch hunt.
etc.
August 19, 2007

Slightly dissapointing.

Although this textbook serves as a good introduction to US History, it is difficult to gather much actual information from the text. In an attempt to increase readability, the authors rarely mention dates or locations of important events, leading to confusion. A timeline at the end of each chapter helps to alleviate this problem, but it is nevertheless annoying. On the plus side, many small jokes are inserted throughout the chapters and help the reader to stay awake while reading about the especially boring parts of our country's history
July 27, 2007

waste of time

I am using The American Pageant in my AP US History class and feel that my knowledge of history is not as good as it could be, and I am very underprepared for the AP test because of "Pageant" being my only source of the information.

The book is frustrating. It uses roundabout language instead of giving you the facts (for instance, saying "every elected occupant of the White House" instead of "every president"). It is very difficult to figure out what it is trying to tell you.

The book is very biased, and is trying to be something it cannot. I'd prefer something straightforward.
March 27, 2007

Terrible

This is one of the worst textbooks i have ever used. The book uses lame metaphors. The style of writing is also horrible. It is very hard to understand and has a lot of "fluff" information. I do not suggest any AP US history students to read this for the AP exam.
January 26, 2007

SIMILAR PRODUCTS

Guidebook Complete: Used with ...Kennedy-The American Pageant: A History of the Republic
by Mel Phiehl

The Great Gatsby
by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
by Mark Twain

The American Pageant Guidebook with Answers: A Manual for Students, Vol. 2: Since 1865 (11th Edition)
by Mel Piehl

The Scarlet Letter (Penguin Classics)
by Nathaniel Hawthorne
by Thomas E. Connolly, Nina Baym