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Review
| Currents in American History: A Brief History of the United States, by Terry D. Bilhartz and Alan C. Elliott. Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2007. 335 pages. $37.95, paper.
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| The competition of history textbook publishers for adoptions by college instructors continues as fierce as ever. Recently, however, students have risen in protest against the rising cost of textbooks, forming organizations, arguing with bookstores about prices, and threatening to boycott publishers who include ancillary materials (bells and whistles, if you will). They complain that few instructors require students to use the attached expensive package of student guides, interpretive CD-Roms, atlases, etc. There is plenty of blame to be shared about the situation. Professors, insensitive to their students' financial concerns, need to take a closer look at the textbooks before they adopt and assign them. Publishers need to inform the professors of variant editions, especially possible brief or concise versions that omit color from maps and illustrations, reduce the size of the margins, and sell for a lower price than the regular editions. Students should be asking professors to give spare desk copies (that come free with course adoption) to the school library to put on reading reserve status. |
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Eight hundred pound gorilla textbooks such as American Pageant, A People and a Nation, and Enduring Vision are available as combined hardbacks or as sliced-up paperbacks for "to 1877" and "since 1865" survey courses. Even so, the expense for these thousand-page textbooks hurts student wallets – well over $100 for the hardback and around $80 for each paperback version. If aware of the textbook price issue (hard to be aware if the book is free to the instructor), professors need to respond to students' concerns. They should tell publishers that ancillary materials are not going to be used and therefore should not be packaged with the text. They should even consider abandoning textbooks in favor of anthologies and primary source readings. However, if a textbook is deemed necessary, they might consider trying a textbook that is only a quarter the size of the gargantuas, is less than half the cost, and offers online resources to students for free. |
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Terry D. Bilhartz and Alan C. Elliott address cost problems in Currents in American History: A Brief History of the United States. The combined paperback edition lists at $37.95, a third the cost of hardback gargantuan texts. The split editions go for about $28, far less than their gargantuan equivalents. Astute instructors can assign relevant ancillary materials, and get PowerPoint outlines for themselves, at the publisher's Online Resource Center. Students can print exercises, timelines, maps, and primary source documents, listen to audio readings, watch videos, and work with self-study questions. The publisher does not indicate whether a charge will be made for them, so I presume they are available at no cost. This textbook is only 264 pages for the combined edition, plus about seventy pages for the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Index, etc. The question is whether the text presents enough material to justify assignment to college or Advanced Placement students. Sacrifices obviously have been made. There are only seven maps in the book, and only fourteen illustrations. Bilhartz and Elliott anchor their chapters to key events in American history and then present extended discussion on the causes and consequences of those events. These discussions are well written and allay most concern that too much is left out of the narrative. It should be noted, however, that of the fourteen chapters, eight have anchor events involving wars, from the American Revolution to the current war on terrorism, as well as the undeclared war with France in 1798. It is a question of selection and interpretation, but other events could have provided anchors: the Santa Barbara oil spill or the start of the California gold rush, for example. African Americans get some attention, but Native Americans, Asian Americans, Mexican Americans, and other minorities get little or no discussion. The environmental movement is barely mentioned. |
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There are a few errors that need correction – pp. 63–64 essentially replays pp. 54–56; gold was discovered at the American River on January 24, 1848, not in 1849 "near San Francisco" (p. 95); Martin Luther King Jr., assassinated in 1968, could not have said anything in 1969 (p. 249); the 27th Amendment is missing (p. 288). Adopting this textbook would obviously mean that an instructor would have to make some adjustments in presenting class lectures to fill in the blank spots. However, students may well appreciate what will seem as a bargain price to them. |
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| Los Angeles Valley College, California |
Abraham Hoffman |
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