Review book vs. Textbook

Western Expansion

Since the assignment was to find both positive and negative aspects of the westward expansion of the country, that became the main criteria of the book criticism.

It seemed that both books had a negative swing, focusing mostly on the displacement of the Indians onto reservations, the depletion of the buffalo population, and the environmental damage (i.e., soil erosion, deforestation, etc). When reading both chapters, I found myself having to search for positive effects whereas the unfortunate things were talked about for pages.

The decision of which book was better (which, in my opinion, was the review book) was an easy one because the review book was significantly shorter. Any book that can condense several decades of information into a few pages while still covering all the bases is well worth the read. I found almost all of the information I was looking for in the assignment before I even opened the textbook.

Why, oh why, did the textbook have to go on for thirty pages? Also, if it’s necessary to go on for thirty pages, at least throw a few pictures in there. The chapter in the review book took me about twenty minutes to read, but the textbook pages took me a couple study halls plus a while at home, too. Obviously, whether the textbook was really long isn’t the reason the review book happened to discuss the topic better. The textbook seemed way too hung up on details than just focusing on the main ideas. In history, the main ideas are the most important things. The details, for the most part, just get in the way of the most important things. The “who, what, when, where, and why” of the assigned topic is what I was looking for, and interested in, when it came to the reading. I wasn’t so concerned with, for example, how each Indian tribe went about dealing with the frontiersmen.

By no means am I trying to say that details aren’t important. If this critique had been about which book had more information, then the textbook would totally win. The critique, if I’m not mistaken, was about which chapter had a better grasp on the topic at hand. In this case, if I can read for either twenty minutes or three hours and get the same information, I’m going to read for twenty minutes.