书名：A Short History of the United States美国简史
作者：Robert V. Remini罗伯特·瑞米尼
出版社名称：Harper Perennial
出版时间：2009
语种：英文
ISBN：9780060831455
商品尺寸：15.2 x 2.6 x 22.9 cm
包装：平装
页数：374

A Short History of the United States《美国简史》是一本通俗的历史读物，作者为美国历史学家罗伯特·瑞米尼。本书为英文版，适合有一定英文基础的历史学习者或爱好者阅读。
推荐理由：
1.美国国家图书奖得主作品，西方认可的美国史，被称为“70年来特好看”的美国史；
2.全书篇幅不大，但内容充实、概述性强、流畅好读，是一本全面深刻而又简明通俗的历史读本；
3.英文原版，地道美式英语，原汁原味，值得反复阅读；
4.印刷清晰，字体设置合适，纸质护眼，阅读舒适。
Robert V. Remini’s A Short History of the United States is an abbreviated, accessible, lively, and erudite narrative history that contains the essential facts about the discovery, settlement, growth, and development of the American nation and its institutions. Racing across the centuries—from the arrival and migration of Native Americans and the discovery of the New World by Europeans, the American Revolution, the Civil War, the Great Depression, up to the global conflicts of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries—it is a fascinating overview of a great nation’s epochs and missteps, and a celebration of its achievements, its unique and enduring strengths, and its abiding commitment to individual freedoms.
Praise for A Short History of the United States 
“Although this history is short in terms of pages… Mr. Remini makes every word and every sentence in this fact-crammed book count.”—Washington Times
“A masterful recounting of the American experience from the discovery of the New World to the present… It is a perfect history for our times.”—Robert Dallek, author of Nixon and Kissinger
“Wise, eloquent, and authoritative… A sprightly tour of the nation’s lives and times.”  —Jon Meacham, author of American Lion
“Masterful… An objective narrative of this nation’s history that readers of all political stripes will appreciate.”—Publishers Weekly

A Short History of the United States《美国简史》从殖民地时代写到2008年，只花了300多页，简明扼要，流畅好读。《美国简史》虽然简洁，但绝不简陋，从印第安人部落登陆西半球讲到现在，每件大事都交代前因后果，每个历史人物都明确来龙去脉。在这几百年间，一个典型的美国人是怎样炼成的，一个共和国如何蜕变成一个民主国家的，一代又一代的美国社会又是什么模样的，这本书都能给你答案。此外，书中把政治史、社会史、经济史、外交史、思想史、文化史等方方面面都有点到，字字见肉，处处干货。
一卷在手，对美国这个当今地球上重要的国家和人民大致就有了一番了解和认识。
In A Short History of the United States, National Book Award winner Robert V. Remini offers a much-needed, concise history of our country. This accessible and lively volume contains the essential facts about the discovery, settlement, growth, and development of the American nation and its institutions, including the arrival and migration of Native Americans, the founding of a republic under the Constitution, the emergence of the United States as a world power, the outbreak of terrorism here and abroad, the Obama presidency, and everything in between.

罗伯特·瑞米尼（Robert V. Remini，1921—2013），生于纽约，二战时参加海军。1951年获得哥伦比亚大学博士学位。伊利诺伊大学荣休教授，美国国家图书奖获得者。2005-2010年担任美国众议院的历史学家。
Robert V. Remini is professor of history emeritus and research professor of humanities emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago and historian of the United States House of Representatives. He is the winner of the National Book Award for the third volume of his study of Andrew Jackson, and he lives in Wilmette, Illinois.

Introduction
1  Discovery and Settlement of the New World 
2  Independence and nation Building 
3  An Emerging Identity 
4  The Jacksonian Era 
5  The Dispute over Slavery, Secession, and the Civil War 
6  Reconstruction and the Gilded Age 
7  Manifest Destiny, Progressivism, War, and the Roaring Twenties 
8  The Great Depression, the New Deal, and World War II
9  The Cold War and the Civil Rights
10  Violence, Scandal, and the End of the Cold War
11  The Conservative Revolution
Reading List
Index
1.发现与定居新大陆
2.独立与建国
3.渐趋形成的身份认同
4.杰克逊时代
5.奴隶制的争议、脱离联邦及内战
6.重建与镀金时代
7.天定命运、进步主义、战争和咆哮的20年代
8.大萧条、罗斯福新政和第二次世界大战
9.冷战与民权
10.暴力、丑闻和冷战的结束
11.保守的革命
参考文献列表
索引

Discovery and Settlement of the New World
There are many intriguing mysteries surrounding the peopling and discovery of the western hemisphere. Who were the people to first inhabit the northern and southern continents? Why did they come? How did they get here? How long was their migration? A possible narrative suggests that the movement of ancient people to the New World began when they crossed a land bridge that once existed between what we today call Siberia and Alaska, a bridge that later disappeared because of glacial melting and is now covered by water and known as the Bering Strait. It is also possible that these early people were motivated by wanderlust or the need for a new source of food. Perhaps they were searching for a better climate, and maybe they came for religious reasons, to escape persecution or find a more congenial area to practice their particular beliefs. Who knows?
Of course some scholars have argued that these ancient people came by sea, and several modern adventurers have sought to demonstrate how it was accomplished. But if a land route
did provide the gateway to this New World, when did it happen? How long ago? The best guess—and it is a guess—is that it took place 50,000 years ago, if not more. But was it a single long migration stretching over a number of years? Or did it come in fits and starts during an extended period of time? Scholars have suggested that the migration continued until 2,000 years ago and that extended families came in groups. Over time, these people settled into every habitable area they could find, penetrating to the most southerly region and even occupying the many islands off the coast, especially the eastern coast. These ancients established themselves along an 11,000-mile stretch from north to south, and a distance of 3,000 or more miles, in some places, from east to west. They developed a diversity of cultures, depending in the main on the areas where they took up permanent residence; and they spoke at least 300 different languages. Their individual clans formed tribes or nations, and their governments usually consisted of a council of elders and clan chiefs selected by the elders. The highest ruling member of the tribe was the principal chief, chosen from one of the major clans. But many functions of government were normally handled by an individual clan or by a family.
The economy was mostly agricultural, that is, hunting and gathering. But these natives were limited in what they could do by the fact that they had not invented the wheel; nor did they have important domesticated animals, such as the horse and cow. And they had not learned the skills of metallurgy, apart from the hammering of sheet copper to make primitive tools and gold and silver for personal ornaments.