The Untold History of the United States, Volume 2 - by Oliver Stone & Peter Kuznick (Hardcover)

About the Book

Describes historical events of the United States between the years 1945-1962.

Book Synopsis

Discover America's secrets in this second of two volumes of the young readers' edition of The Untold History of the United States, from Academy Award-winning director Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick, adapted by Eric Singer.

There is history as we know it. And there is history we should have known.

Complete with poignant photos and little-known but vitally important stories, this second of two volumes traces how people around the world responded to the United States's rise as a superpower from the end of World War II through an increasingly tense Cold War and, eventually, to the brink of nuclear annihilation during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

This is not the kind of history taught in schools or normally presented on television or in popular movies. This riveting young readers volume challenges prevailing orthodoxies to reveal uncomfortable realities about the US role in heightening Cold War tensions. It also humanizes the experiences of diverse people, at home and abroad, who yearned for a more just, equal, and compassionate world. This volume will come as a breath of fresh air for students, teachers, and budding young historians hungry for different perspectives--which makes it a crucial counterpoint to today's history textbooks.

Adapted by high school and university educator Eric S. Singer from the bestselling book and companion to the documentary The Untold History of the United States by Academy Award-winning director Oliver Stone and renowned historian Peter Kuznick, this volume gives young readers a powerful and provocative look at the US role in the Cold War. It also provides a blueprint for those concerned with shaping a better and more equitable future for people across the world.

Review Quotes

"Modern textbooks tend to portray history in a sterile event-based format that leaves students and adults alike craving a more genuine and human connection in a way that excites them. "The Untold History of the United States, Young Readers Edition, Volume 2" delivers just that. By using popularly known events and periods of US History as a framework, the authors weave in thought-provoking and seldom discussed events told from the perspectives of the people who lived them. The publication breathes new life into the story of the development of the United States and sheds informative light on the circumstances of who we are a country and how we got here."--Sandi Davis, Social Studies Chair, Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School

"[Volume 2] will leave readers with considerably more nuanced views of this country's past...and present...Scary, sobering stuff."-- "Kirkus Reviews"

"Detailed, ambitious, and opinionated, this engaging narrative lays out a view of U.S. history often overlooked in standard texts and deserves a place on most library shelves."-- "School Library Journal"

About the Author

Oliver Stone made such iconic films as Platoon, Wall Street, JFK, Born on the Fourth of July, Natural Born Killers, Nixon, Salvador, and W., and is the author of the highly acclaimed memoir Chasing the Light.

Peter Kuznick is professor of history and director of the award-winning Nuclear Studies Institute at American University and is currently serving his sixth three-year term as distinguished lecturer with the Organization of American Historians. He has written extensively about science and politics, nuclear history, and Cold War culture.

Eric S. Singer is a high school and university educator and historian of the Cold War in the United States. He served on the faculty of the University of Baltimore, where he taught about the Cold War's impact on ordinary Americans' lives as well as other social, political, and structural forces that shaped American culture over four centuries. He adapted for young readers Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick's The Untold History of the United States and Martin J. Sherwin and Kai Bird's American Prometheus (as Oppenheimer and the Atomic Bomb). His work has been featured in Hamburg Institute for Social Research's Angst im Kalten Krieg (Fear in the Cold War), Urban History, The Nation, The Baltimore Sun, San Francisco Chronicle, Teen Vogue, and The Baltimore Banner. He lives outside Washington, DC, with his wife, daughter, and dog, Umji.