The Great Upheaval
America and the Birth of the Modern World, 1788-1800

Jay Winik hooked me with April 1865 so I had to give this one a try. I know, its a long book, but it covers a lot of ground, and a lot of turbulent history. As with April 1865, it is very well written. It ties the stormy years that closed the eighteenth century together beautifully. I thought it was a captivating page-turner.

The Great Upheaval is nothing if not ambitious. In this author's previous book, April 1865, the topic was extremely focused both in timeline and subject matter. Not so in The Great Upheaval. Technically it covers the years 1788-1800 and a majority of the civilized world at that time, attempting to l......more

It's a general misconception even among Americans that we kicked the British out of our country and then things were generally calm until the Civil War. The end of the war was just the start of an ongoing internal conflict that wasn't free of bloodshed and reflected the kind of angry partisanship wh......more

I had high hopes for this book. Jay Winik is a good stylist, with a knack for focusing on underappreciated nuances in the historical record. This book, unfortunately, was a bit of a disappointment. The premise is a good one: to look holistically at US and European history in the period from 1788 to......more

This book was fascinating! After reading Les Miserables I was so disappointed that I did not know more about French history, especially the time period of the French Revolution and then into Napoleon. I knew the French Revolution was bad... who doesn't? But I did not realize how bad. The author at o......more

Whenever I'm reviewing a history book like this one, I struggle greatly to come up with a rating for the book. On the one hand, this is an insane achievement that took over 6 years and an endless amount of research all to provide a Game-of-Thrones-esque overview of one of the most interesting time p......more