Reddit reviews America: A Narrative History

I only took two US History courses in college in California but I thought the the textbook was good:

America, A Narrative History Brief Edition by George Brown Tindall and David E. Shi http://www.amazon.com/dp/039393408X

Each topic is only a page or two and the pace is pretty good. If you read this you'll know more than most Americans.

I want to warn you though, if you come from a secular country US History is loaded with a lot of stuff regarding religion. Consider, many of the early settlers were the castoffs from Europe where they were seen as fanatics. You can trace the religious problems all the way back to Queen Elizabeth and earlier. Many left Europe because they weren't allowed to worship freely because of the state religions - which led to separation of church and state in the US. One of the biggest supporters being Roger Williams, the founder of the colony of Rhode Island, and founder of the Baptist church said that, "Forced worship stinks in God's nostrils." Textbooks previous to this edition didn't have as much information on religion in the US but this edition was updated to show its influence.

Other books we read (lots of documents, historians like documents):

Women's Rights Emerges within the Anti-Slavery Movement, 1830-1870: A Brief History with Documents

The Rise of Conservatism in America, 1945-2000: A brief history with documents.

For the Record: A Documentary History of America, Vols 1 & 2 (A collection of historical documents mostly speeches, letters, and newspapers relevant to what was happening.)

The first part of your argument you completely validate everything that I said. That is the reason for why there's a mandate in the first place: to tame the cost of health care.

> Again, the federal government is going to force Americans to buy a product from private corporations.

The federal government forces Americans to buy a lot of products from private corporations. You need electricity in your home, don't you? Your electric company is, most probably, a private corporation. You need to heat your home - either through heating oil or gas - that's accomplished via a private corporation supplying you that product, and there is no alternative. Phone service to communicate? Private corporation. Internet? Private corporation. Want to drive your car in NY state (and a few other states)? Need private car insurance. All of those things still don't have the the extensive cross-state influence that health care does. It is completely unique in that aspect.

> Is it a good thing that the federal government is forcing more people into this flawed system?

I take it that you're a libertarian. You do realize that wanting to change a system that was created by the private sector requires substantial regulation, right? It's similar to financial regulation, in that a system created by banks that is so inherently filled with risk requires substantial regulation to fix. Health care is similar because the risk of financial loss is spread out, thus costs rise across the board.

> hospitals (which have been pushed away from a charity or non-profit model by the federal government

Well, this is just factually incorrect. Hospitals becoming for-profit is just an aspect of the free market. It's capitalism, plain and simple. The same reason why a lot of new penitentiary systems are for-profit -- there's a lot of money to be made.

> Taxes were a small part of why the colonists revolted. The tyranny impacted them in far more areas than taxes.

What tyranny are you talking about?

> The Constitution is more about reigning in the federal government so that the states would retain power and be able to protect the citizens from another source of tyranny (the federal government)

What??? That was the exact point of the Articles, not the Constitution. The Articles were created with a deep skepticism of the federal government. Therefore, it gave individual states too much power and the federal government too little. Have you ever read The Federalist Papers? Those papers were essentially an appeal for less state power and more federal power and greatly contributed to the Constitution (heck, the guys who wrote The Federalist Papers had great influence in the writing of the Constitution and American life thereafter).

> taxes are just a small part of it.

Taxes are actually a major part of the Constitution. Article I, Section 8, details what Congress may do pertaining to taxes, and there is also the "necessary and proper clause" or "elastic clause" which gives Congress considerably more leeway in terms of levying taxes (which SCOTUS has upheld).

I don't want to be mean or anything but please do some research before discussing topics in which you have limited knowledge of. There's a lot of good information out there that is just a few clicks away. Also, allow me recommend a solid American history book: America: A Narrative History.