The American Pageant, AP16th Edition is a textbook for an American high school history class. So, the reality is that not a whole lot of analysis is required. Most people are familiar with what a history textbook looks like even if they did not necessarily spend all that much time studying it. And, of course, the content of an American history textbook should not come as too great a surprise. If it does, then perhaps this book will prove not just entertaining, but necessary. Any student who has been assigned this textbook in conjunction with a class or online lessons obviously needs no analysis to stimulate them to peel open the covers and peek inside.
But what about those kind of people—adults mostly—who actually read textbooks for pleasure as if they were less academically-inclined historical volumes of non-fiction? If that sounds like you, the analysis you are looking for is whether or not The American Pageant feels like reading one of those old-fashioned textbooks that rarely made history come alive. And the answer is affirmatively negative. Which is to say yes, it is not like those old textbooks. The writing is a demonstration of how textbook approach history more from a narrative perspective than in the past. The focus is less on dates and places and names to remember and more geared toward creating a fiction-like story which includes all that necessary information, but presents it from a more human perspective. Consider the description of one of the least recognizable of U.S. Presidents, Zachary Taylor: “with his stumpy legs, rough features, heavy jaw, black hair, ruddy complexion, and squinty gray eyes—was a military square peg in a political round hole.” That is a description that seems ripped right out of a historical novel rather than a classroom instructional manual. And that description is representative of the approach toward crafting the content.
The structure of the AP 16th Edition really offers little in the way of startling revolutionary changes to the editions immediately preceding it, but nevertheless does continue the millennial approach to revamping the basic look and style of school textbooks. That approach is to replicate a sensibility if not necessarily absolutely attempt a full-on recreation of website design. A healthy amount of white space, but not so much that space is wasted and very subtle use of graphic and images that do no overpower the focus of the text.
Essentially, then, the AP 16th Edition of The American Pageant is almost certainly one of the better-looking history textbooks in the curriculum today as well as probably one of the better-written examples. Those assigned the book can find the answer to those test questions easily while those who just enjoy reading textbooks can always find something of interest to avoid any encroaching boredom resulting from tracking through history in the book’s only true—and systemic failure: continued dependence upon a linear chronological approach to teaching history rather than a thematic structure.
