Book Review: Don't KNow Much About History

Here is my book review. It is meant to be 500 words and I have 532 here. I thought it would be a lot longer, but 500 words isn't as much as I thought it would be. I liked this book... no, I LOVED this book. If you want to glance over my review and give me any advice that would be loverly... and yes, i did mean to write loverly. Let me know. It's not due for like two weeks, so whatever.


Don't Know Much About History by Kenneth C. Davis is one of a series of books written by the same author. These books are meant to take subjects normally deemed boring and liven them up, all the while being truthful with the facts. This particular book accomplishes just that. So far, in the first four chapters, intrigue, fact, and humor have all been achieved. These chapters are the history of the United States from pre-Columbus to the mid 1870's. Davis truly has created a page turner that will get the historical facts into the minds of many.

One of the great things about this book is how easy it is to use and understand. All of the subject headings are broken down into questions the readers would ask themselves. For example, if the reader doesn't know what the Articles of Confederation are, they can look in the table of Contents for the heading “What were the Articles of Confederation (p. 48). The index is very through and lists every page a particular topic appears on, so if someone wanted to know every page Thomas Jefferson was listed on, they would simply need to flip to the index, and there would be a list of all 40 pages he is mention on (p. 667). Throughout the book, the voice Davis uses is that of friends chatting over a meal, and not that of an emotionless text book. Life isn't boring and history is life, therefore history does not have to be boring, and Davis proves that
with his book.

Davis is a step above history text books, because instead of glorifying historical figures he shows them in natural light. As far as any high school student is concerned, Paul Revere is a larger than life character who rode his ride and single handedly saved the American people from defeat. In actuality, Revere was quickly captured by the British, and when leading troops against the British at Pentcost he chickened out and headed back for “safety” (p. 84). Christopher Columbus also has a smudged historical record. Not only did Columbus not “discover” America (chapter 1), but when he did come to The New World he was cruel towards his crew (p.4) and the Native Americans (p. 5). Lincoln is the hardest to accept as imperfect. Lincoln was a great man, but he was, by our accounts, a racist (p. 239). For his time he was very “honest” and liberal, but he did accept slavery in the states where it was already legal (p. 239). Our “Great American Heroes” aren't always the great people text books portray them as.

Even though this book is amazing, it is not perfect and for everybody. Some people only like to have the facts and don't like to turn historical figures into characters. Davis wanted history to be entertaining, so people who don't enjoy that will not enjoy this book. Davis also mistakingly made some of the more important areas of history into a list (for example, “Milestones in the American Revolution” p. 71) which has the same affect on people as the genealogy sections of the bible, they get skimmed over and never really read. All in all though, Don't Know Much About History is a book that everybody should read and keep on their bookselves.

I guess it still just seems short to me...