Cheap, shorter history texts?

Question

I am looking for a survey American history book that might be shorter than the average text and shorter, but is also much cheaper.

Answer 1

This survey is cheaper and shorter ...

Chapter 1. Columbus discovered America. The Pilgrims and the Puritans came. There was a Declaration of Independence, a Revolutionary War, a Constitution, and Washington became president. Jefferson made the Louisiana Purchase and sent Lewis & Clark to the Pacific Ocean. After a war with England in 1812, Andrew Jackson chased the Indians across the Mississippi, then James Polk fought a war with Mexico so he could get California, then there was a gold rush. They had slaves on cotton plantations in the South, so they fought a Civil War that the North won and the slaves were freed, but Lincoln was assassinated.

Chapter 2. After the Civil War, they bought Alaska, built a railroad across the country, then fought the Indians in the Plains where Custer last stood. Business got big and they built a lot of factories in the cities. Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, Henry Ford built cars, and labor unions got started. They fought a war against Spain, got the Philippines, then took Hawaii.

Chapter 3. They fought Germany and won World War I to make the world safe for democracy, but that failed. The Twenties roared, but Wall Street crashed and there was a Depression that Roosevelt fixed with a New Deal. Hitler and Mussolini were bad guys, and the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor, so they fought all of 'em in World War II, which ended with an atomic bomb, just in time to start a Cold War with Russia, a Marshall Plan to save Europe, a Fair Deal from Harry Truman, and a hot war in Korea. A senator from Wisconsin, Joe McCarthy, said just about everybody was a Commie, but Joe didn't last long. A blue-eyed crooner from Hoboken, New Jersey, Frank Sinatra, kept women swooning.

Chapter 4. They had segregation in the South which the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional, so Rosa Parks got on a bus and started a Civil Rights movement led by Martin Luther King, Jr., who got killed. Elvis Presley swiveled his hips, invented rock & roll, and the Beatles invaded from England. Ed Sullivan blessed them both. America loved Lucy, Dick Clark kept America dancing, and Annette Funicello anticipated the Barbie Doll. Jack Kennedy started a New Frontier, stared down the Soviets in the Cuban Missile Crisis, messed up the Bay of Pigs, got killed, and posthumously sent a man to the moon. Lyndon Johnson had a wife named Lady Bird, started a Great Society featuring Medicare and a welfare state, wanted both guns and butter, and fought a war in Vietnam that he couldn't win. After Bobby Kennedy got killed, Tricky Dick Nixon got elected with a plan to end the war in Vietnam. He had Henry Kissinger running around the world making deals with the Israelis, the Egyptians, and the Chinese. Nixon opened up China, and after five wasted years, he pulled out of Vietnam. Leaving nothing to chance in the 1972 election, Nixon, along with cronies Haldeman, Ehrlichman, and Mitchell, hired a dirty tricks crew to break into the Democrats' office in the Watergate, then they covered it up and Nixon was impeached. Jerry Ford pardoned him, then Jimmy Carter had to deal with double-digit inflation, an oil crisis here and a hostage crisis in Iran.

Chapter 5. Ronald Reagan, the teflon president -- no scandal could stick to him, and no idea could stick in his brain -- got elected as a tough anti-communist, branded the Soviet Union as the "Evil Empire", became chummy with Mikhail Gorbachev, presided during the fall of communism, sent an air strike against Libya's Moammar Khadifi, and couldn't remember the details of Oliver North's guns for hostages deals in the Iran-Contra scandal. His vice president, George Herbert Walker Bush, built an international coalition to kick Sadaam Hussein's Iraqis out of Kuwait in the First Gulf War. Bush, Sr. got out while he was ahead. Bill Clinton, a Democrat, balanced the budget, has a wife Hillary who apparently likes living in the White House, and had some moments with a close friend, Monica Lewinsky, that nearly got him impeached. Less fortunate were ex-football star O.J. Simpson and pop music icon Michael Jackson. The Boston Red Sox won a World Series.

Chapter 6. George W. Bush lost the election but bacame president anyway because of chaff in some Florida paper ballots. Besides helping the rich get richer, he didn't know what he wanted to do as president, but that changed when they blew up New York's World Trade Center on 11 September 2001. He declared a War on Terror, made Osama bin Laden Public Enemy Number One, invaded Afghanistan, threw out the Taliban, couldn't catch bin Laden, started talking about Sadaam Hussein and Iraq, weapons of mass destruction, which he said Iraq had but they really didn't, connected Sadaam with al Qaida when there really was no such connection, then launched a war without a plan to get out. He listened to his advisors Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rice, but paid no attention to Powell, the only guy who had any sense, and who got out himself after one term. They caught Sadaam, declared the war won, still couldn't catch Osama, stopped talking about him, and then got caught in the middle of an Iraqi civil war that has made the War on Terror worse than it was before the ill-advised Iraqi invasion. A hurricane, Katrina, struck New Orleans and devastated the city. The federal response was woefully inadequate. A Florida congressman resigned after his sexually suggestive emails to former House pages were disclosed, and the House leadership is embroiled in controversy over a possible cover-up. Gasoline prices dropped dramatically in the days leading up to November congressional elections, with the Republicans desperately trying to retain their majority. Prices will go back up after the election. Angelina Jolie had Brad Pitts' baby in Africa, and for some reason, a lot of people paid attention. The St. Louis Cardinals won a World Series, and basketball icon Arnold "Red" Auerbach died at 89 of a heart attack.


There's your American history book -- a short survey, as you requested, and the price is right, even better than you can get at amazon.com.

Answer 2

I do not know how to make history shorter.