Review: America (The Book)

Author: Jon Stewart and the writers of the Daily Show

Title: America (The Book): A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy Inaction

Description:  A “lighthearted look” at American history and politics.

Writing style: Funny as heck.

Audience: People who can get a joke.

Major ideas: Let’s try not taking ourselves so seriously all the time.

Wrap-up: Two fairly major caveats: the book is almost 10 years old by now, and it has some fairly raunchy bits (words and pictures). These two aside, I laughed through most of it. Sometimes these political books can be so topical that they become not merely funny, but nearly incomprehensible. This book does a survey of American history, so that will always be there. It’s mostly just the stuff about the 2004 election that seems pretty dated. 4/5*

Review: America, the Story of Us

Author: Kevin Baker

Title: America, the Story of us: An Illustrated History

Description: Published by the History Channel, this book is filled with beautiful color illustrations (probably about half text and half pictures). It gives a pretty standard and surface-y history (in about 400 pages, that’s all you can do).

Source: ALA

Writing style: Documentary but interesting.

Audience: Adults (or maybe advanced high schoolers).

Wrap-up: I read this one bits at a time and it was pretty interesting, but I think it would get a bit monotonous if devoured in gulps (not a page turner). Worth taking a look for the pictures, though. 3/5*