US history book for a European conservative reader?

November 1, 2021 4:10 AM

I am looking for a book gift for a conservative family member who likes history. Based on our conversations they have been mostly exposed to American conservative talking points about US history and I'd like to offer them a chance to get more in-depth knowledge. What book should I buy?

I wanted to get them The People's History of the United States or Lies My Teacher Told Me but when I read the introductions, I realized that they are immediately going to dismiss these books because of "liberal bias". I mean, one of them is literally talking about Trump in the preface. My relative is not a fan of Trump thankfully but more a "all politicians are the same" camp. Still, I would like to give them a book that would give them a little more actual facts about the US while being not obviously "modern era liberal" from the get-go.
To be clear, I don't want a book that embellishes history just one that a conservative would not dismiss out of hand. Either so reputable that conservatives don't outright question its value, or maybe niche enough?

Any ideas?

posted by M. to Human Relations (21 answers total)

I don’t have a recommendation for a broad survey book, but the answer to “what US history book should I read/gift” is almost always Eric Foner’s Reconstruction. It’s a seminal period that was taught poorly and explains so much of where we are today. Foner’s work is the authoritative gold standard.

I’d also say perhaps Foner’s Second Founding, but might be too obviously liberal without the grounding of his Reconstruction first. There’s also David Blight’s Race and Reunion, which looks at how the narrative of the Civil War was reimagined to promote a concept of “reconciliation” at the expense of reckoning with race and justice. Race in the title may put them off, but again, explains much of how we are where we are today.
posted by HonoriaGlossop at 5:06 AM on November 1, 2021 [4 favorites]

Response by poster: Forgot to add, more recent history (like the 1980s) would be nice as well.
posted by M. at 5:39 AM on November 1, 2021

Nathaniel Philbrick's Mayflower is a detailed retelling of the Mayflower crossing and what is known as "King Phillip's War". It's even-handed and fair, but it does not shy away from the ways the reality of the early settlers is very very different from the popular narrative. I'd love it if all conservatives could have such an unbiased depiction of one of our founding myths.
posted by Rock Steady at 6:47 AM on November 1, 2021

Building the American Republic is a recent text that is free to read online, so you can evaluate it yourself. It's just a straight up textbook narrative history, so maybe it's too dry. But the authors seem reasonable, and for your purposes the content seems appropriate.
posted by Wobbuffet at 6:57 AM on November 1, 2021

Jill Lepore's These Truths is a recent one-volume popular survey. She's mainstream among historians - which still means more liberal than the average voter. But it's also almost 1,000 pages, so you might want to ask your family member first.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 6:59 AM on November 1, 2021 [4 favorites]

Jill Lepore’s These Truths is great, and would seem to fit your brief very well. NYT review by Andrew Sullivan.

On preview: what Mr. Know-it-some said!
posted by minervous at 7:02 AM on November 1, 2021

With the caveat that I haven't read it, would Heather Cox Richardson's To Make Men Free: A History of the Republican Party appeal to them? If her more recent popular writing is any indication, it should be both smart and accessible.
posted by dizziest at 8:24 AM on November 1, 2021 [2 favorites]

Ordeal By Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction, by James McPherson. The first part of the book explains US development up to the War.
He won a Pulitzer for Battle Cry of Freedom, which covers the same topics in a more popular way; Ordeal is more in-depth.
Seconding Foner as well.
On preview: missed your edit adding post-1980s desirable also.
posted by LonnieK at 8:25 AM on November 1, 2021

The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabelle Wilkerson on the Great Migration might be good as an introduction to structural racism, and also might appeal to more conservative readers in that there's definitely a through-line about people striving to improve their own personal circumstances and situations.
posted by damayanti at 8:51 AM on November 1, 2021 [1 favorite]

The Men Who United The States by Simon Winchester.
posted by serendipityrules at 8:58 AM on November 1, 2021

William Cronon. Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England. New York: Hill & Wang, 1983. The trees of pre-colonial New England were sooo tall and they were all chopped down.
posted by BobTheScientist at 9:32 AM on November 1, 2021 [4 favorites]

You mentioned that niche stuff might be good. If your conservative family member is in any way invested in the quality of institutions of higher education, I think the recent history in Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy by Tressie McMillan Cottom (2017, The New Press) might work. Here's an excerpt, and here's Dr. McMillan Cottom's page about the book It's a book that makes scholarship accessible to a non-academic reader. It's a book that uses the author's experiences -- as a student, as an admissions sales rep, as a teacher, as a researcher, as a black woman, as a friend and daughter -- to vividly illustrate and bring the reader into theoretical understandings of systems, policy, and economic forces. It's sociology, it's investigative journalism, it's memoir, it's a lens on something I see every day (Internet/subway/bus ads for education). It's witty and no-nonsense.

And if your conservative family member is particularly interested in taxes, I recommend Robin Einhorn's 2006 book American Taxation, American Slavery (University of Chicago Press) on the effect of slaveowners' tax avoidance on the structure of the US Constitution and government. It's brainbending and dense and academic and full of astonishing anecdotes. Here's an special essay by Dr. Einhorn to give a sense of her argument, "Tax Aversion and the Legacy of Slavery". In the book, Einhorn discusses how:

• the Southern colonies had much less competent tax-collection infrastructure than the Northern colonies did, partly because going into someone's home to count and assess their slaves was seen as much more invasive than walking on or near someone's property to assess their real estate
• damaging "taxation=slavery" rhetoric (which continues through today) was projection by slaveowners
• the negotiations around protections for white supremacy affected national policy from the late 1700s through the early 1900s

posted by brainwane at 11:22 AM on November 1, 2021 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: You mentioned that niche stuff might be good. If your conservative family member is in any way invested in the quality of institutions of higher education, I think the recent history in Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy by Tressie McMillan Cottom (2017, The New Press) might work.

Oooh, that's such a good idea. Yes, they are absolutely interested in the quality of higher ed.
That's a superb angle.

If y'all have some more suggestions about the 20th century/ niche stuff, I'd be thrilled as well.

(I love all the suggestions BTW, they all look like something I might personally want to read! Please keep them coming!)
posted by M. at 11:36 AM on November 1, 2021 [1 favorite]

All very good picks above. I would add four books by Rick Perlstein: Before the Storm, Nixonland, The Invisible Bridge, and Reaganland -- which are collectively a history of the United States as it slid right in the sixties and seventies. Extra credit: Robert Caro's book about Robert Moses and New York City, and all of his books so far in his mind-blowing multivolume biography of Lyndon Johnson. Both authors are on the left, but their work is so rigorous and mature that they don't draw significant honest criticism from the right in the United States and are pretty much recognized as contemporary masterpieces by the rest of the spectrum.
posted by Scarf Joint at 11:38 AM on November 1, 2021

Have they read Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel already?

While somewhat controversial, I have shared this book with a number of family members and I think it makes a pretty convincing (if roundabout) case against white supremacy. I wouldn't perhaps mention that when handing them the book; you can let them arrive at that conclusion on their own, which is basically what the book does.
posted by Kadin2048 at 11:44 AM on November 1, 2021 [2 favorites]

Let me come back and add William Cronon's Changes in the Land: Chicago and the Great West, which is brilliant economic history of the later nineteenth century. You don't need to be a Chicago aficionado: This book takes you through the business and economic and geographic stories of how the East Coast origins of the United States extended themselves westward. I really cannot think of a work of American history from the last fifty years that I admire more.
posted by Scarf Joint at 11:55 AM on November 1, 2021

I'm 99% certain that Scarf Joint means William Cronon's Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West. Changes in the Land is the earlier book about New England that Bob the Scientist mentioned.
posted by col_pogo at 12:57 PM on November 1, 2021 [2 favorites]

You might want something like Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and Unmaking of the American Consensus by Rick Perlstein, or his other works like Nixonland. Fun to read, amazing anecdotes and flavorful quotes abound, doesn't repeat obvious reactionary rah rah propaganda, clearly describes the weirdness and delusions of the paranoid style of American politics in the time frame you're looking for, but also humanizes these bad actors and even tries to take their motivations at face value. If I had to pick one set of work to attempt prying up the well-trod tribal stones of American conservatism it would be this stuff.
posted by panhopticon at 1:26 PM on November 1, 2021 [1 favorite]

Salmon: A Fish, the Earth, and the History of Their Common Fate by Mark Kurlansky? Not wholly American but niche and mostly 20thC. Hydro-electric power has consequences; logging has consequences; shipping has consequences: salmon and its integration into human life and culture are history.
posted by BobTheScientist at 3:56 PM on November 1, 2021

Cottom's book, referenced above, is great. I'm trying to remember how overtly lefty the politics are and having trouble separating the book from other things I know about the author. It may trigger leftist alarm bells. But, it's great.

I'd suggest considering any of the Studs Terkel compilations. The Good War and Hard Times are classics. (Working is also great, but maybe a little more overtly political.) The author may be a commie pinko agitator, but he lets the subjects speak for themselves and shows a real interest in a very diverse survey of the US experience and an old-timey politeness that may feel comfortable.
posted by eotvos at 9:47 AM on November 2, 2021

Please consider Old Whigs by Greg Weiner. Weiner compares the writings and political activity of Edmund Burke, a British Conservative your friend will likely know of, with that of Abraham Lincoln. Both were Whigs and practiced a similar, conservative prudence.

Weiner draws some thoughtful comparisons.
posted by John Borrowman at 1:38 PM on November 2, 2021