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sweekune's review
dark
funny
informative
reflective
fast-paced
3.5
Horrible Histories were books I adored as a child. Most of my knowledge of history came from those books and I loved how funny and kooky they were. My mum likes to tell the story of the time I wrote "Nil desperandum auspice deo" on all my SATS papers because there was a line in Stormin' Normans suggesting to do so.
So recently it came to my attention that my knowledge of US history is somewhat lacking. In a time when a lot of consumable media contains references from this, it was beginning to annoy me that I didn't know exactly what the references were from. I did what any adult would do and did a little Google search and confused myself further. I needed something easy to understand, succinct, and covering as much of the relevant history as possible... Enter Horrible Histories: The USA.
- This book is clear, chronological for the most part and, as it is really a children's book, very comprehensible. It covered most of the events I could think of plus lots I had no idea about.
- As you would expect from the Horrible Histories series, the book does not shy away from the more gruesome, vicious and bloodthirsty elements of history. There are many violent anecdotes told.
- Whilst this book does mostly focus on things from a white POV, there is a lot of focus on how the white colonists were not nice to Native Americans, BIPOC and other minority groups. It is made very clear that was was done to these groups is not okay. The section on racism at the back of the book was a nice touch for a twenty year-old book but could have been much larger and more detailed. The achievements and treatment of BIPOC, Native Americans and other minorities in the 20th century are not really touched upon at all which I feel is a really sad oversight and drags down an otherwise really good book.
I think you could do much worse than reading this book as a beginner's guide to US history but I would advise that anyone reading this should then go on to research more about the twentieth century and especially focus on the achievements of those (BIPOC, Native Americans, etc) who are omitted from this book.
So recently it came to my attention that my knowledge of US history is somewhat lacking. In a time when a lot of consumable media contains references from this, it was beginning to annoy me that I didn't know exactly what the references were from. I did what any adult would do and did a little Google search and confused myself further. I needed something easy to understand, succinct, and covering as much of the relevant history as possible... Enter Horrible Histories: The USA.
- This book is clear, chronological for the most part and, as it is really a children's book, very comprehensible. It covered most of the events I could think of plus lots I had no idea about.
- As you would expect from the Horrible Histories series, the book does not shy away from the more gruesome, vicious and bloodthirsty elements of history. There are many violent anecdotes told.
- Whilst this book does mostly focus on things from a white POV, there is a lot of focus on how the white colonists were not nice to Native Americans, BIPOC and other minority groups. It is made very clear that was was done to these groups is not okay. The section on racism at the back of the book was a nice touch for a twenty year-old book but could have been much larger and more detailed. The achievements and treatment of BIPOC, Native Americans and other minorities in the 20th century are not really touched upon at all which I feel is a really sad oversight and drags down an otherwise really good book.
I think you could do much worse than reading this book as a beginner's guide to US history but I would advise that anyone reading this should then go on to research more about the twentieth century and especially focus on the achievements of those (BIPOC, Native Americans, etc) who are omitted from this book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Blood, Death, Forced institutionalization, Genocide, Gun violence, Gore, Kidnapping, Mass/school shootings, Misogyny, Murder, Physical abuse, Racism, Slavery, Torture, and Violence
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