Audiobook · read by volunteers
À Short History of the United States
Edward Channing (1856–1931)
Read by Allyson Hester · 26 chapters · 8 h 21
About the book
How did a handful of colonies on the Atlantic coast become a continental nation? Edward Channing, one of the best-known American historians, offers his answer in a concise single-volume history. His larger A History of the United States has been widely praised for its thoroughness and accuracy and won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1926; this shorter book gives general readers the story in a more manageable form. It moves from the first settlements through the colonial period, the Revolution and the making of the Constitution, and on to the growth and conflicts of the nineteenth century. The writing is clear and measured, and the story is told with an eye for the events that shaped national life. Twenty-six parts, read by a single LibriVox volunteer, last about eight and a half hours.
Introduction
Edward Channing, who lived from 1856 to 1931, was an American historian and a long-serving professor at Harvard, the son of the poet William Ellery Channing, a friend of Emerson and Thoreau. His best-known work, A History of the United States, is praised for its thoroughness and accuracy, and it received the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1926. The present volume, A Short History of the United States, appeared in 1908 and offers a shorter account for a general reader.
The book belongs to general history and the early modern period, the era in which the foundations of the country were laid. It follows the story from the earliest European settlements onward. Channing taught at Harvard for decades and devoted much of his career to the six-volume History of the United States, completed in 1925, of which this book is the shorter companion.
As with any history written more than a century ago, readers should remember that scholarship has moved on. Later historians have given far more attention to the experiences of Native Americans, enslaved people and women than a book of 1908 could. Even so, it remains a useful example of how an eminent historian of the period summarised the national story.
The recording has twenty-six parts, some of which combine two chapters, and is read throughout by one LibriVox volunteer. It lasts about eight and a half hours. Today it is worth hearing for those interested in how American history was written at the beginning of the twentieth century, and as a clear and steady outline of events.
Public domain
Edward Channing died in 1931: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text