American History Now

By: Eric Foner, Lisa McGirr, American Historical Association

Narrated by: Scotty Drake

American History Now collects 18 original historiographic essays that survey recent scholarship in American history and trace the shifting lines of interpretation and debate in the field.

The new generation of historians showcased in American History Now posed new questions and developed new approaches to scholarship to revise the prevailing interpretations of the chronological periods from the colonial era to the Reagan years. Covering the established subfields of women's history, African American history, and immigration history, the book also considers the history of capitalism, Native American history, environmental history, religious history, cultural history, and the history of the United States in the world.

©2011 American Historical Association (P)2016 Redwood Audiobooks

Missing essay?

This title is listed as an unabridged audiobook. The introduction explains that there are 18 essays, yet my audiobook only has seventeen. Kevin Gaines' chapter on African-American history is missing.

Very dense... for historians

I have a BA in history, and this book was too dense for me. The essay format combined with the focus on secondary sources to re-examine well studied periods of US history is appealing, but it doesn't work in this case. It's too dry, and narrator's voice is quite flat and dry too, and for word snobs out there he mispronounces names of places and words that really he should get right (my favorite was "Sierra Lee-oh-knee").

Even within individual essays it bounces around too much. Maybe this would be a better read, but as an audiobook it didn't work for me.