This Country of Ours by Dodo Press - Classic Historical Book | Perfect for American History Enthusiasts & Homeschooling

As an adult history buff, I picked up the 99 cent Kindle edition as a curiosity, but I found the book to be a surprisingly good read. not just an oddity or a historical relic itself. I wouldn't recommend it as *the* one history of America for a modern-day reader (child or adult) to read, but it has virtues that many more current books, especially textbooks, lack. It treats history as a *story* (or series of stories), something that kids (and adults) might actually get interested in, not a collection of dry and seemingly useless facts. It treats American history in a basically positive manner, rather than as a politically correct chronicle of crimes against humanity (though it takes some note of historical controversies, and doesn't suggest that the U.S. has been 100% right about everything all the time). And while "written down" to a certain extent for young readers of the early 20th century, it's certainly not "dumbed down" to the extent that modern textbooks are reported to be.One slight anomaly is that while this is indicated to be a history of the United States of America, almost half the book is devoted to pre-Revolutionary North American history-- and not just the British colonies, but European explorers going back to the Vikings, and the Spanish, French and Dutch colonies. This is not a bad thing, however... I actually learned things from this early part of the book (or at least came across some interesting stories I hadn't encountered before) whereas the part dealing with actual U.S. history covered material I'm already mostly familar with.As I said, I wouldn't advise anyone to seek their whole knowledge of American history from this book. Besides cutting off at the end of World War I, it obviously, as someone noted, lacks the benefit of recent historical research and findings. And while I'm not an apostle of political correctness, still it's undeniable that the treatment here of American Indians and African-Americans is pretty patronizing. But this is certainly worth looking at as a supplement to moe modern treatments of American history.