Don't Know Much About History - reading

Finished "Don't Know Much About History: Everything You Need to Know About American History But Never Learned" by Kenneth C. Davis, which discusses the "messy ripples of history," from the discovery of America to the 9/11 attacks in 2001. Technically, this is the 100th one I rated on GoodReads and I didn't finish until today, but I had a pretty good idea it was getting 4/5 stars from me.

Overall it was a very good treatment of history, though I thought the coverage of earlier history was better organized than the more recent events. Earlier history seemed to be in a more logical order, perhaps because it is so long ago and we've had time to sort through it more completely. One feature of the book that I will likely be cursing for a long time is that each major era referenced one or more "must read" books. I compiled a list of 53 of them and will likely make my way through many eventually.


That list (along with its Amazon star rating) is:

1. From Freedom to Slavery: Rebirth of Tyranny in America by Gerry Spence (4.7/5 stars)
2. Bush V. Gore: The Court Cases and Commentary by EJ Dionne Jr and William Kristol (3/5 stars)
3. Too Close to Call: The Thirty-Six-Day Battle to Decide the 2000 Election by Jeffrey Toobin (3.6/5 stars)
4. Maestro : Greenspan's Fed and the American Boom by Bob Woodward (3.3/5 stars)
5. A Vast Conspiracy: The Real Story of the Sex Scandal That Nearly Brought Down a President by Jeffrey Toobin (3.6/5 stars)
6. All Too Human by George Stephanopoulis (3.9/5 stars)
7. First in His Class: A Biography Of Bill Clinton by David Maraniss (4.6/5 stars)
8. Shadow: 5 Presidents and the legacy of Watergate by Bob Woodward (3.3/5 stars)
9. And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic by Randy Shilts (note: 20th Anniversary Edition available) (4.7/5 stars)
10. President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime by Lou Cannon (3.6/5 stars)
11. The Best and the Brightest by David Halberstam (4.5/5 stars)
12. Vietnam: A History by Stanley Karnow (4.4/5 stars)
13. Our Vietnam by A.J. Langguth (4/5 stars)
14. Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK by Gerald Posner (3.4/5 stars)
15. The Fifties by David Halberstam (4.5/5 stars)
16. Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America's Struggle for Equality by Richard Kluger (4.9/5 stars)
17. The Great Fear: The Anti-Communist Purge Under Truman and Eisenhower by David Caute (5/5 stars, one review)
18. Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case by Allen Weinstein (3.8/5 stars)
19. Truman by David G. McCullough (5/5 stars, one review)
20. The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes (note: 25th Anniversary Edition available) (4.7/5 stars)
21. Whittaker Chambers by Sam Tanenhaus (rating not available)
22. No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II by Doris Kearns Goodwin (4.6/5 stars)
23. Roosevelt's Secret War: FDR and World War II Espionage by Joseph E. Persico (4.1/5 stars)
24. For the President's Eyes Only: Secret Intelligence and the American Presidency from Washington to Bush by Christopher Andrew (4.6/5 stars)
25. Day Of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor by Robert B Stinnett (3.4/5 stars)
26. The Borrowed Years, 1938-1941 by Rob Ketchum (5/5 stars, one rating)
27. The Great Depression: America 1929-1941 by Robert S. McElvaine (3.1/5 stars)
28. Lindbergh by A. Scott Berg (4.2/5 stars)
29. J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets by Curt Gentry (4.3/5 stars)
30. The Burning: Massacre, Destruction, and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 by Tim Madigan (4.3/5 stars)
31. At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America by Philip Dray (4.9/5 stars)
32. W. E. B. Du Bois, 1868-1919: Biography of a Race by David Levering Lewis (4.1/5 stars)
33. Theodore Rex by Edmund Morris (4.1/5 stars)
34. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris (4.8/5 stars)
35. Mornings on Horseback: The Story of an Extraordinary Family, a Vanished Way of Life and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt by David G. McCullough (4.3/5 stars)
36. The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914 by David McCullough (4.7/5 stars)
37. April 1865: The Month That Saved America - Jerry Winik (4.0/5 stars)
38. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West by Dee Brown (4.7/5 stars)
39. 500 Nations (Pimlico Wild West) by Alvin M Josephy (4.7/5 stars)
40. Undaunted Courage - Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson and the Opening of America by Stephen E. Ambrose (4.5/5 stars)
41. Duel: Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr and the Future of America by Thomas Fleming (4.2/5 stars)
42. Three Roads to the Alamo: The Lives and Fortunes of David Crockett, James Bowie, and William Barret Travis by William C. Davis (4.5/5 stars)
43. A Struggle for Power: The American Revolution by Theodore Draper (4.8/5 stars)
44. The Winter Soldiers: The Battles for Trenton and Princeton by Richard M. Ketchum (4.7/5 stars)
45. The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin by H.W. Brands (4.6/5 stars)
46. American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence by Pauline Maier (4.1/5 stars)
47. Saratoga: Turning Point of America's Revolutionary War by Richard M. Ketchum (4.6/5 stars)
48. Liberty: The American Revolution by Thomas Fleming (4.5/5 stars)
49. Patriots: The Men who Started the American Revolution by A.J. Langguth (4.6/5 stars)
50. The Creation of America: Through Revolution to Empire by Francis Jennings (3.1/5 stars)
51. A Delusion Of Satan: The Full Story Of The Salem Witch Trials by Frances Hill (3.9/5 stars)
52. The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story from Early America by John Demos (3.5/5 stars)
53. Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World by Mark Kurlansky (4.4/5 stars)