An Age of Extremes 1880-1917

Book 8 of Joy Hakim's "A History of US", An Age of Extremes is another fine entry in the 10-volume young adult US history set. Even though I like to consider myself quite knowledgeable about history in general and US history in particular, I always uncover new facts when I read these books. Moreover, I gain greater insight on the happenings of the era because of the excellent presentation. I love all of the interesting sidebars, pictures, and diagrams that are included.

This volume covers numerous topics from 1880 to the beginnings of World War I such as the rise of industry, the politics of business vs. government, and inventions galore. We get nice summaries of the major players of the day: tycoons such as Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Carnegie, or JP Morgan; Presidents like Grant, Hayes, Taft, Teddy Roosevelt and Wilson; and other prominent people who impacted US history like John Roebling, Frank Lloyd Wright, John Muir, William Jennings Bryan, and the Wright Brothers. Of special interest to me, because I like reading about the history of books, were nice summary biographies of L. Frank Baum, the author of the Wizard of Oz books, as well as the Muckrakers like Ida Tarbell and Upton Sinclair, not to mention Sam McClure and his stable of writers: Jack London, Rudyard Kipling, Stephen Crane, and Willa Cather. We bought this set of books for use in our kids' homeschooling effort and they are perfect for that purpose as they bring the history to life. Highly recommended.

War, Terrible War

I've completed the 6th volume in Joy Hakim's A History of US: War, Terrible War. You may remenber that this is the first of my WOE (While Otherwise Engaged) reading for the year. Refer to the first couple of posts in this blog for further clarification of "WOE reading".

This volume covers the years 1855-1865 in the history of the U.S. These books are written for young readers and so it does tend to simplify the major issues of the Civil War, however, I think they do a good job of portraying the ebb and flow of history. If this is the first book on the Civil War read by a teenager, for example, they will walk away with a fairly good idea of the prime players as well as the under currents that lead up to and through the war. The author, as in other volumes of this history, does a great job of including lots of relevant snippets, sidebar facts, and pictures to keep us turning the pages. Students of US history won't find much new here but that's not the role of the book (or the series). It effectively reviews the relevant issues of the time period, and that's what we expect. The slavery issue takes a lead role here as expected but other issues are not swept under the rug. All in all, a good entry in the series.

Next WOE read is Orwell's 1984.