Random House Books for Young Readers Americana: A 400-Year History of American Capitalism

This book is a fascinating collection of bite-sized chapters that capture the history of America through portrayal of innovations and the development of dozens of American institutions - press, oil, retail, computers, regulation, transportation and many more. An easy read, lots of fun anecdotes that keep it light and lively - even my wife has enjoyed my repeated, "hey, you've gotta hear this!" interruptions - but very informative. Definitely more a history book than a business book. Author refers to it as a "time-lapse view of history" through 4 centuries of innovations, each regarded in its time as "the next big thing." Highly recommended!

I have read a few history books of the US, and most are very heavily focused on the people who occupied the White House rather than the rest of the nation. If Howard Zinn wrote the the People’s History of America, then America Inc book could be best described as an entrepreneurs history of America.The book has 35 chapters, each on one subject - coal, oil, steel, banking etc which take us all the way from the early colonisers in the 1600s to iPhone waving protestors in 2008. The writing is an excellent mix of the people and companies which drove the development of America. The book is really well researched and soundly written. There is a lot of learning in this book, but rarely lags and zips along nicely.Highly recommended book if you are interested in American history from a slightly different perspective. My only gripe is that the renaming of the book America Inc, rather than keeping the original name Americana, cheapens the book and sounds childish.But don’t let that distract you from the contents. It’s great and reminder that an author does not have to be an academic to write a great history book!

Buenas, he recibido el libro en el estado de las fotografías adjuntas. Muy mal.

Exceptionally well-written economic history; outlining the steady development of American industry, business leaders and innovators. He is using a rather unusual system of short chapters ( Venture; Tobacco; Taxes; Cotton; Steam; Canals; Railroads and so on), covering American economic history from the Mayflower to the present day. He weaves the story around individual actors; including a background of social issues; including unions and civil rights. Easily readable and fascinating overview of American capitalism and economic growth.

Usually, american history is told as a sequence of men in the White House. This author takes a different path. He sees US history from trade and innovation. While the pilgrim fathers starved in their first year on american soil, they soon found out that they could buy beaver furs from the natives and sell them with a profit to England. In the beginning, settlers often paid for the passage by working for the party who paid the bill by working for them for seven years.Tabacco, now a sin product, and cotton followed. As far as slavery is mentioned, things changed after California joined the Union. All considered, slave owners in the south had too much of their fortune in slaves. They would not give upthem without a fight.American history is, unlike other nations and Europe, a love affair with technology. This leads us to Silicon Valley.All considered, an entertaining book, worth your time.George Thaller