From Publishers Weekly
Workers, women and minorities are the focus of a volume more successful as a textbook than as a history for the general reader. At its best, this offers enlightening glimpses of the impact of white settlers on American Indians, early stirrings of the labor movement, the hardships imposed by slavery, and "the capacity of ordinary people to alter the very process of history." However, the book is marred by sweeping assertions ("More and more people were now making their living in ways that challenged the values of the revolutionary generation"), a careless blunder (that Andrew Johnson was not impeached) and a relentless contempt for wealth: virtue is here the province of those with modest means. Also, this America is inhabited not so much by individuals as by economic groups: the British "invaders" (meaning the colonists, not Redcoat soldiers), Northern merchant elite, mill women, landlords and, of course, the "poor, cringing tenant." The text is liberally embellished with contemporaneous drawings, cartoons, photographs and prose excerpts. Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
This is American history viewed from the underside. The framework is the changing nature of work that built and transformed American society. The principal theme is the displacement of agriculture and crafts as the dominant economic activities by capitalism, with the parallel shift from slavery, indentured labor, and artisanship to factory wage earners. An attempt is made to integrate the history of community, family, gender roles, race, and ethnicity into major political, social, cultural, and economic developments. While this approach yields some useful insights, more often it is only the obvious that is belabored. The illustrations from contemporary sources are excellent. Suitable for American history collections.- Harry Frumerman, formerly with Hunter Coll., CUNYCopyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Review
"Who Built America? is an extremely insightful and thoughtful compendium of social and labor history, skillfully interwoven with a far more critical than usual political history of the nation. It is a gracefully written chronicle that will serve as something of a counter-textbook, an antidote to conventional treatments that have generally given short shrift to a large segment of the population..."

-- Alex Keyssar, Duke University, in The Nation

"This is an amazing job. The text reads as if it were the work of a single, eloquent, spirited and committed writer. The material is rich and interesting, the language forceful and compelling...the production of the book does it proud."

-- Roger Kennedy, Director, National Museum of American History