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> some say FDR knew the attack was going to come and allowed to happen,

What shocked me was in that "Day of Deceit" book it's documented about how when Washington gave Hawaiian military commanders a warning about the attack, the Navy admiral immediately ordered all of his ships out to sea in the area northwest of Hawaii.

His fleet was stripped, and consisted of only old ships with no carriers -- all of the good ships had been ordered by Washington on another mission.

The area to the NW -- the exact area that Japan attacked from -- was the only approach to Hawaii that was not covered by commercial shipping or aircraft. It was the logical place to launch an attack from.

But Washington ordered the admiral's ships back to port! And that is where they were when the attack happened.

> the sentiment that the Japanese in WWII were absolutely evil is rather rampant,

That's because they were absolutely evil! China may have their flaws and biases, but they're not wrong about that. Which made our deal not to prosecute Japan's bio-warfare criminals all the more repugnant.

From another Wikipedia search. This map is from an inspection of the New Spain frontier. A group was sent by the government to check the state of the missions, presidios (like a mission but not directly Catholic, more like a fort) and the communities around them. They didn’t like what they saw and because of this the government changed the entire frontier policy. Lots of places were abandoned and new ones were set up as a way to make a new defense line. Basically everything about the future governing of Texas and the rest of the desert frontier stemmed from this.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cayetano_Pignatelli,_3rd_Marquis_of_Rub%C3%AD

Super detailed Book you could pirate https://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Line-Inspection-Presidios-1766-1772/dp/B08QWLDPJP

I recommend Joy Hakim’s A History of US series. It’s for upper elementary/lower middle but I think it’s great for anyone. Our local library has it. https://www.amazon.com/History-US-Ten-Set/dp/0195327268

Yeah, don't get me wrong, there are extremely rare instances where I may say avoid a book entirely but generally "every" book is worth reading. Afterall, this is how we learn which ones have a bias. I just don't think those with a visible bias have a place in an educational arena which is my underlying gripe with People's History. Otherwise it just isn't the best book for what you're talking about.

Remini's book (which is properly A Short History of the United States: From the Arrival of Native American Tribes to the Obama Presidency) is much more politic focused as his general study focuses on the 19th century history of the US House (he is the US House of Reps Historian). Publisher's Weekly said of <em>Short History</em>;

>To write a thorough, balanced history of the United States in under 400 pages is no mean feat. Remini, professor of history emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago and a National Book Award winner for his work on Andrew Jackson, deftly wraps his expertise and deep knowledge of his subject in stripped-down prose that provides everything a casual (or bewildered) reader needs to know about the United States from the first English colonists until the beginning of 2008. Remini's final chapters are slightly rushed and his judgments too general to be useful, but these flaws are easily overshadowed by his masterful middle sections focusing on the 19th century (his scholarly specialty). In contrast to some surveys of American history, like Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States or William Bennett's America: The Last Best Hope, Remini delivers an objective narrative of this nation's history that readers of all political stripes will appreciate.

The books for the CLEP exam is great!

CLEP® History of the U.S. II Book https://www.amazon.com/dp/0738611271/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_SJRlFbDJCJEB2

Also check out these videos from John Green on YouTube, I read this book and aced American History 1 for my CLEP exam which is a college credit exam.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8dPuuaLjXtMwmepBjTSG593eG7ObzO7s

McCullough's 1776 is a good starter. Rick Atkinson is working on a trilogy (similar to what he did for WWII) and the first volume is going to be released soon. I have an advanced copy and it's really a tremendous read.

In his famous book "A People's History of the US" (that link lets you read some of the book) the author Howard Zinn uses a great deal of first-hand testimonies.

While some, like the Spanish priest -- Las Casas -- who sailed with Columbus and documented the lives of some Native Americans, are not first-hand testimonies by Native Americans but many others are. (And I dare anyone to read Las Casas' words and not be moved!)

Perusing that book (most libraries carry it as it is a huge seller) will no doubt provide a lot of sources...

> "The chief problem in historical honesty is not outright lying. It is omission or de-emphasis of important data. The definition of 'important', of course, depends on one's values." -- Historian Howard Zinn

The records on these decisions are well-established and pretty uncontroversial. If you're looking for fringe accounts or "unconventional" interpretations, be careful - there's a good reason these accounts remain on the fringes, and it's not some conspiracy; they are unsubstantiated and poorly researched.

Having said that; this book is recent and spans the period you're looking at: American Foreign Relations: A New Diplomatic History

not really about JFK - but his dad. The Patriarch by David Nasaw is an incredible book, and will give you enough material on JFK.

There is so much wrong with this article it'd take a book to explain it.

But wait, one journalist/author who served on the same WWII aircraft carrier as former president George Bush, and who has researched Pearl Harbor for decades, did write a book to explain it.

That author not only dug up key evidence from the federal government via Freedom of Information Act requests, but he also personally interviewed WWII cryptographers who said the US did break the Japanese Navy's code (something the US gov't said was not done until after Pearl Harbor).

Needless to say, there's more to this story than this article, which has a NSA historian as its key source.

> "Japan was provoked into attacking America at Pearl Harbor. It is a travesty of history to say that America was forced into the war." -- Oliver Lyttleton, British Minister of Production, 1944.