Dave Barry Slept Here: A Sort of History of the United States
- Book Review,
by Dave Barry
Amazon.com
Dave runs American history through the wringer, and comes up with some wonderfully warped formulations. (The Vikings, for example, "were extremely rugged individuals whose idea of a fun time was to sail over and set fire to England, which in those days was fairly easy to ignite because it had a very high level of thatch, this being the kind of roof favored by the local tribespeople...") Covering pre-Columbian days through the dawn of the Bush administration, Dave Barry Slept Here is the funniest thing to hit this great nation since the Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930.
From Publishers Weekly
Miami Herald syndicated columnist Barry here assembles a funny U.S. history replete with malapropisms (Ferdinard and Imelda of Spain financed Columbus), parodies ("This land is your land, / This land is my land, / Looks like one of us / Has a forged deed to the land."), literal-mindedness (President Monroe Doctrine) and, above all, anachronisms (the Wrights' first flight was canceled because of equipment problems at O'Hare). Several clever gags run through the book--one about the significant contributions of women and minorities (although none is ever detailed), another ascribing the date of every major event to October 8 (for ease in remembering) and a third featuring the Hawley-Smoot tariff, which had an immediate impact on the Great Depression. There are few heroes in Barry's pantheon, and only an occasional villain--principally Richard Nixon--while other widely admired figures, like Mark Twain and Winston Churchill, are given their lumps. Author tour. Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
This book creates a serious problem--how to read it in public without laughing out loud. Barry, the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist from the Miami Herald , writes deft, gaily satirical comedy which always borders on the ridiculous and sometimes crosses that border. His idea of making humor out of many familiar events and notable figures in American history is appealingly audacious. Written in the form of a history text, with "questions" at the end of chapters, the book starts with the days when there were "no roads, no cities, no shopping malls, no Honda dealerships" and ends at the point of landing "a manned spacecraft on Trump"--the planet, of course. Ideal reading for gloomy afternoons and other times that require pleasant diversion.- A.J. Anderson, Graduate Sch. of Lib . & Information Science, Simmons Coll., BostonCopyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Book Description
If you love to laugh, if you love your country, if you are unaware that "the Sixth Amendment states that if you are accused of a crime, you have the right to a trial before a jury of people too stupid to get out of jury duty," Dave Barry Slept Here is the book for you. Every single momentous event and crucial movement is covered, including:
The Birthing Contractions of a Nation
Kicking Some British Butt
The Forging of a Large, Wasteful Bureaucracy
The Civil War: A Nation Pokes Itself in the Eyeball
The Fifties: Peace, Prosperity, Brain Death
The Reagan-Bush Years: Napping Toward Glory
And much more!
From the Publisher
Although Dave lampoons and distorts every event in American history as only he can do, I think I learned more from this book from all my history courses.
Every time I see another Dave Barry book, I wonder how it is that Florida can produce not one, but TWO humorists: Dave and Carl Hiaason (TEAM RODENT, NATIVE TONGUE, SKIN TIGHT). They're both national treasures! Maybe there's something about that steamy heat...
From the Inside Flap
If you love to laugh, if you love your country, if you are unaware that "the Sixth Amendment states that if you are accused of a crime, you have the right to a trial before a jury of people too stupid to get out of jury duty," Dave Barry Slept Here is the book for you. Every single momentous event and crucial movement is covered, including:
The Birthing Contractions of a Nation
Kicking Some British Butt
The Forging of a Large, Wasteful Bureaucracy
The Civil War: A Nation Pokes Itself in the Eyeball
The Fifties: Peace, Prosperity, Brain Death
The Reagan-Bush Years: Napping Toward Glory
And much more!
From the Back Cover
"A dazzling performance . . . Barry is brilliant."
--The Washington Post Book World
"Barry turns his formidable wit to the subject of American history, with a result reminiscent of the Reduced Shakespeare Company: The better you know the original, the funnier it gets."
--Los Angeles Times
"I fear that Mr. Barry's dream of making millions of dollars through mass sales of his book to a captive audience of innocent schoolchildren will not be realized, and he will have to be content with making readers laugh a lot, as this one did."
--The New York Times Book Review
About the Author
Dave Barry is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for the Miami Herald. He is the author of numerous bestsellers, including the recent Dave Barry in Cyberspace. He lives in Miami, Florida.
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