American History: Connecting with the Past

I bought a very good condition used book, but got an excellent one. Feeling being upgraded. Nice!

Ever wonder what it would be like to go back to high school? Scribble secret notes to a friend in your textbook? Try out that new 6-pack of neon highlighters and glitter pens adding artful marginalia to the history reading homework? Mock up historical figures like train car graffiti? Well thanks to the previous owner of this textbook, the illustrious and abundant indelible etchings took me back to the good old days with a maliciously 'tophatted' & 'mustached' John Adams, 349 pages of swooping glitter pen underline obscuring text, and what I believe to be a Geneva Law violation on page 526, providing me the strenuous excercise of wrist muscles and patience I was looking for. The pencil engravings were an exciting challenge to erase, only requiring 50 minutes, two pencil top erasers, and a pink pearl to transform the sharp, content-covering nonsense to a blurry, smeared gray backdrop--a challenge I expected to be complete after the final chapter... But wait- there's more!!! Even the appendix was littered with distasteful glitter graffiti, bringing the whole historically-defamating artistically-horrifying ensemble together. If you're looking for an authentically marred piece of second hand literature, wrought with reckless doodling, coffee stains, cracker crumbs, and sign up for the bonus package including course note cards variously interspersed through the the chapters, look no further than buying used. And if you're lucky, you'll get Khat Tuchscherer's old textbook like I did!

It's rare to find a comprehensive textbook on American history written by a single author, but there may be distinct advantages to that, as exemplified by this book. Brinkley gives a readable and unified perspective that reads less like an anthology, more common in multi-authored texts, and less bogged down in chronological listing of historical details, giving a clearer overall interpretation. He writes well in lively prose, making the book fun to read. Abundant maps and illustrations help to give a "You are there" sense.

Some cosmetic damage

Decent book will work for what we need. Way better than paying full price for new book. Will definitely be doing this for all college book needs from now on.

Very good

Amazon staff did correct the issue for me with this book. Many thanks!

As promised this book was new!!! Excellent price. Delivered on time!