This book brought home some facts about the explosive growth that occured in the East Bay as a result of World War II, especially in Richmond. It also helps explain a lot of the migration and subsequent types of job creation that are still with us today as a result. I found the background on Kaiser - making ships, creating health plans and hospitals as a result - particularly interesting.

Anyone interested in the history of the east side of the San Francisco Bay during the 20th century will enjoy this book. Johnson employs a social historian's approach to explain what happened to the Richmond and Oakland from 1941 to 1945 and how the war years affected the Midwesterners and Southerners (and others) that came to the Bay Area and the natives that they encountered. The book successfully portrays aspects of Bay Area history such as huge shipyards, temporary war housing and rowdy downtown night-life that, for the most part, are no longer visible. Johnson also outlines some of the political movements that developed during the WWII years and how they affected post-war Oakland and Richmond. Johnson's discussion of the politics of the late '40s and early '50s is informative and interesting but also brief; this may somewhat frustrate anyone interested in the political history of the region. Overall, this is an informative, well-written book.

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.