This book was good, but not as good as it could have been. The title, "Exploring America's Historic Places" is a misnomer in the early portions. The idea behind the book seemed to be exploring American history through different sites that epitomized or highlighted aspects of an era. Sort of like photographs telling a story. From the Civil War portion on, the book does a much better job of sticking to this structure.

Unfortunately, the first portions do not stick to this format. This book is only 200 pages with many photographs, almost like an extended National Geographic magazine. You aren't going to get much information in considering they were dealing with @500 years of European-era history plus pre-Columbian history. The result in the early half is less than satisfactory, reading like a very shallow Junior High history lesson from DK. If they had stuck to their format, the results would have been much better. ( )

Lots of pictures (the best) of the scenes and objects, with the school-house explanations. Includes Edward Curtis' photographic portraits of Native Americans, objects from the Smithsonian (Jefferson's polygraph), and exemplary crafts produced from exploration to the Gilded Age. Spectacular photographs of the geology and buildings. Wonderful. ( )