A review of Alan Brinkley’s Eyes of the Nation: A Visual History of the United States (2001)
(Rating 4 of 5)
This will a short review because I don’t have much to say about this book. This is not to say the book is bad for it is very much good. However, it does give cause for me to write much. That can be a good sign usually when I have a lot to say something that means something is usually highly objectionable generating a lot of words in response. When I am reviewing a biographical work, I tend to try to look at the subject in the same way the author did in order to properly evaluate the author’s material.
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| Virginia map |
This book divides American History, from the Columbian Exchange right up to the end of 20th century, into seven separate chapters. The first few chapters cover a couple of centuries where the remaining five are measured in decades. Each has a written sections that explains the period of history that it covers before going into the visual aspect which is why people bought the book. The written pieces, as one can easily imagine, is overly broad and I do not fine anything objectional about them. The visual pieces are amazing and contain great images.
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| Normandy landings |
The
only complaint I have about this book has nothing to do with author but the
publisher of my copy. The Chapter 4
write up which goes from pg.129-144 is duplicated. So, after pg.144 it is suddenly 129 again not
145. You do not get to 145 until you go
by it a second time. It was quite a
shock as I read one chapter a sitting. I
started into the duplicated chapter and read about three pages before I
realized what had happened. The image part was not repeated so I skipped to
that. I was pleased and I remember
wondering after reading chapter 4 the first time why there was no images
section like in the earlier chapter.
Considering that was the chapter the covered the time period from
1850-1870 I was glad that turned out to be a corrected mistake.
