I bought this book for my AP US history summer assignment, and although i've only read the first 10 chapters of this book i think it is very comprehensive and has many quality features. This is definitely a good book for history teachers and students.

American history can best be understood if the fundamental conditions that control both the social lives of ordinary people and the practice of politics are investigated through the decades. This means moving beyond conventional ways of organizaing a book around political events that historians like to think of as "turning points". Social change has a pace and rhythm of its own, and understaning its flow enables us to see poliitical changes in a new light.

The authors have divided American history into three unique periods: Preindustrial America, from the beginning of the sixteenth century to the 1820s; Industrializing America, from the 1820s to the 1920s; and State and Society, from the 1920s to the present. Each of these periods has its own logic and contains special kinds of human relationships that prodice a distinct history of the United States.

I grew up reading political and military history; that's what I was taught in high school and college, for the most part. When I took over my school's Advanced Placement program in US History, I decided that while I could teach the traditional forms of history, such as politics and the wars, I simply didn't know enough social history. Given the fact that social history is the dominant form of history today (and realizing that there simply wasn't that much new to say about politics or wars), I turned to this masterful textbook. My students love this book: it's readable, entertaining, and thorough. I add in the political and military stuff, when it's needed. About the only major hole in the text is some short-changing of the Monroe Doctrine, which is the biggest error that I could see. Teachers have to choose textbooks that address their shortcomings; if you don't know your political or military history, choose another textbook. But if you have the same background I do (and most people over thirty do), then choose this one. It's been very successful in my classroom.

This has a wide selection of old time songs, but uses a scheme of tablature that I am not familiar with. Instead of the guitar strings being represented by six lines, and the notes falling on the lines to indicate the string that is to be fretted, this book uses six spaces separated by five lines, and the notes fall on the spaces. I found it somewhat confusing. It would have been helpful to see a sample page of the tablature to see what it was like before buying it.

It is captious to complain about the "arbitrariness" of this or that form of tablature, or indeed of its "difficulty." ALL versions of tablature are arbitrary, and there is no real consensus as to which version is particularly preferable. SO: spend a little time getting familiar with the tablature being used in the present text, and then work your way through a few tunes using its tablature rather than wishing another tab was being used. After doing this, the Brody book becomes a pretty fair offering to the player with at least a little previous experience. It's not great, but taken for what it is, it has some great tunes, in relatively eassy to use arrangements for the early-intermediate player.