I've grown to be very scornful of sound bite information -- the stuff you get on TV, popular magazines and the like. I suppose I could blame my wife, the scholar, for corrupting me, but the seeds had already been planted in high school, when my teachers tried to wean us from the encyclopedia. Imagine my delight, then, when I opened a package from my mom and found amongst the treasures a copy of this book. The cultural history of the United States in 403 pages of words and pictures. I questioned my mother's taste, but figured it might amuse the kids and put it on my shelf anyway. Some days later I was killing time and picked the book up again for some ultra-light reading. Once again I was reminded that my mother has a lot better taste than I do. I found America A to Z to be a delightful coffee table book. It's a collection of sound bites, to be sure, but each one gives a slight little glimpse into something from the culture of the United States. At times it even made the culture come alive in ways that a dry history text never could. I even learned a couple of things as I made my way through it. This will never replace a good, solid history book or even an encyclopedia, but if you ever need a quick, simple cultural literacy reference, I would certainly recommend this book to you. Mom was right again ...
--J. ( )