American Political History: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)

This book is a great sweeping look at America's political history. It is written in a way that even those such as myself with very little historical understanding can gain an idea of our countries historical issues and what we have been through.

For a brief overview of the subject, this is perfect. Have ordered four more in the series.

Great overview of the history of American politics, this is required reading in my APUSH class.

interesting informative narrative.

This is an excellent little book for my students.

Concise, well written, and interesting book.

Critchlow does what it says in the blurb. To have encompassed so much in 133 pages of text is a major achievement. However, I think that an extra 10 pages or so would have produced a much better book. These could have been used to deepen understanding of the context in which federal elections took place over these two centuries. Covering every election up to 2012 including midterms is a big ask. The result is a lot of galloping and too little grazing.Critchlow does show how laws passed by individual states have helped to turn the US into a great experimental laboratory for new ideas. I've always thought that it is the states that run America although it is Washington that grabs national and international attention. Probably unfairly. Federal-state tensions are built into such a system and these are well-explained.Critchlow analyses changing voter bases and shows how close many Presidential elections have been. Third party candidates have skewed many electoral outcomes. The increasing Republican-Democat acrimony of recent years marks no great departure from earlier times. The author highlights how corruption, big money, scandals and dirty tricks have been part of American politics from the very start. A thick skin and fat wallet are prerequisites for political success at the highest level. The author highlights the poor quality of many winners and losers in the Presidential race.This, of course, is one great weakness of presidential systems in comparison with parliamentary ones. Parliamentary parties exercise a quality control over leadership and failing prime ministers can be quickly dispensed with. Gridlock is the other great weakness: Obama was effectively a lame duck president for 6 out of his 8 years in office. 'Bi-partisanship' in the national interest usually produces watered-down laws with no transparency as to which party is responsible for what.I've always thought that the USA left the British Empire too soon. Our parliamentary system had yet to develop its full maturity - which was later passed on to smoothly-functioning Dominions whose politics became infinitely cheaper. The US gave themselves a kingly President hedged about with all sorts of checks to stop him becoming another King George. Yet not , it seems, to stop him appointing Supreme Court judges in a partisan way! The US judiciary has become politicised in a way which makes a mockery of the division of powers idea so dear to the Founding Fathers. This is rarely an issue in Britain and the Dominions.Canada, Australia and New Zealand were also frontier societies with all the societal rough and tumble of the USA yet I am pretty sure which of these the rest of the world would prefer to emulate as a democratic model. Even the young history academic Woodrow Wilson thought the US should adopt a parliamentary system but by then it was too late. American fundamentalism seems to believe that Moses went up Mt. Sinai three times, twice for the tablets and then for the Constitution - an apparently God-inspired document! Incidentally, I applaud the author for mentioning that the high-minded Wilson segregated federal facilities in Washington when he became the first southerner to occupy the White House since the Civil War.Despite the gallop, Critchlow writes well and occasionally enlivens his account with anecdotes such as the quip chanted by Republicans at a campaigning Grover Cleveland. Trump and his 'crooked Hillary' post-date this book but one cannot say that American politics reached a new low in 2016. The main question now seems to be what is allowed on television and social media. Maybe one day an American Moses will ascend Mt. Sinai for a fourthtime to espy a new Promised Land called Canada which will end two centuries of wandering in an Eighteenth Century political wilderness!A very good overview, Highly recommended.

Good quality and speedy delivery

All you ever wanted to know about American Political History! Love this series.

Ich musste das Buch gür einen Kulturwissenschafts-Kurs für mein Studium kaufen. Auf wenigen Seiten erhält man einen sehr guten Überblick über die politische Geschichte der USA. Manchmal ist es allerdings auch sehr verwirrt, da nicht alle Ereignisse chronologisch abgehandelt werden. Alles in allem dennoch ein gutes Übersichtsbuch.