An insufferable strewing together of entirely unrelated anecdotal passages; essays to follow written in equally insufferable language. It is as though the authors clicked through microsoft's thesaurus:
"ooh, this looks like a ten dollar word that will make me look smart."
Where multifaceted events like slavery's political impact, lincoln's financial disaster, and the progressive era are completely glossed over (though entire chapters are dedicated to two of them), there are single-sided pinpoint focuses on far less important "problems" (e.g.: 15 pages dedicated to lincoln's memorial, 40 pages dedicated to how people like to drink, etc). Either change the title of the book to "The Way Unimportant People Felt About Somewhat Important Things In History" or collect more useful passages.
Protip: if your historically inept teacher has chosen this book, buy it used and look for Hi-Liting-- I estimate roughly one sentence per page will be of any importance.
