Introduction:
For those who have resolved to read more in 2026, here is another book series. It consists of twenty 'popular' histories relating to a country that is, as of this writing, rather unpopular. Some of the authors of these works were also 'popular', for example, Dos Passos, C.S Forester (Horatio Hornblower), Irving Stone (Van Gogh & Michelangelo) and Stewart Holbrook, known for his books about the Northwest, including Canada. The name, "Hodding Carter" will be recognized by those who are old enough to remember the presidency of Jimmy Carter.
Reviews are provided to assist you with your decision-making and all 20 of the books are available in the Western Libraries. Even though the books were published during the 1950s-60s, some are fully available in the Internet Archive.
When introducing the "Mainstream of America Series" Doubleday "noted that each volume would present the past “in terms of people and their stories” without “dull dates, dim figures, lists of battles,” and vowed that the series would make history “as moving and lively as the finest fiction.” The series encompasses a vast range of American history, from the European discovery of America and early exploration to the American Revolution, westward expansion, and industrial development." Enjoy.
The Mainstream of America, Lewis Gannett, Editor. 1953-1966
The Age of Fighting Sail: The Story of the Naval War of 1812, Forester, C.S.
"Like the other volumes of this series, this book lacks the formal parapher-
nalia of learning with which scholars usually buttress their findings, and to which it is popularly supposed the average reader objects. This may be forgiven; what cannot be pardoned is the absence of suitable maps and charts other than the two inadequate end maps. If the reader is interested in the larger picture of the War of 1812 and the relation of sea power to the history of the age, he will go directly to Mahan, or perhaps even to Roosevelt, rather than dally with Forester; but if he wants sheer enjoyment, he can do no better than renew acquaintance with his old friend Captain Hornblower speaking with a Yankee accent and sailing Joshua Humphreys' frigates.” George F. G. Stanley, The Canadian Historical Review, Volume 38, Number 3, September, 1957, pp. 248-249.
The Age of The Moguls, Holbrook, Stewart H.
"This work by Oregon journalist and historian Stewart Holbrook (1893-1964) profiles various capitalist tycoons of the late 1800s and early 1900s, including John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, Charles Schwab, Thomas Mellon, Samuel Insull, and more, focusing primarily on how they managed to acquire their vast fortunes. Holbrook professes to using "neither gilt nor whitewash. Nor tar" in his discussions, but does argue that "no matter how these men accumulated their fortunes, their total activities were of the greatest influence in bringing the United States to its present incomparable position in the world of business and industry."
Reference & Research Book News,(Vol. 25, Issue 3).
The Angry Scar: The Story of Reconstruction, Carter, Hodding.
"Bad Times Not Forgotten; THE ANGRY SCAR: The Story of Reconstruction. By Hodding Carter. Mainstream of America Series. 425 pp. New York: Doubleday & Co. $5.95. NYT By C. Vann Woodward, Feb. 1, 1959
" Hodding Carter does not charge like a bull into this china shop of myth and history, but he is clearly not disposed to preserve all its contents uncritically. Although he lives in Mississippi and edits a newspaper in Greenville, he thinks of himself as a liberal and a moderate. Alert to the uses his opponents have made of Reconstruction legend, he is on guard against their stereotypes and their unconscious bias. It is his purpose, he writes, “to separate truth from myth and to link significant past events with the present legacies of those events." This is surely a praise worthy undertaking, but it is also a most difficult one."
Dreamers of the American Dream, Holbrook, Stewart H.
This is available in the Internet Archive.
"Stewart Holbrook, who wrote the 2nd in the Mainstream of America Series books, The Age of Moguls, has added a 10th volume with his assembly of personalities who left their mark on America. Visionaries, crackpots, fanatics, dreamers, suffragettes, temperance workers, be-sloganned devotees of betterment in marriage, religion, sex, alcohol, labor relations, penal codes & the treatment of mental illness rub shoulders in a book which encompasses the American dream of Utopia, sobriety & the pursuit of happiness. The shouting & axe-swinging reformer, Carrie Nation, splintered saloon mirrors. At Sherrill, NY, John Humphrey Noyes, founder of the Putney Corporation of Perfectionists, fostered "complex marriage"--an apt description, since fidelity & exclusiveness in matrimony were frowned upon. Laura Bridgman, Louis Dwight, Dorothea Dix, Susan B. Anthony & Mrs Stanton fought their mercurial & protracted battles--usually in defense of the rights of others: the deaf, the blind, the insane & the weaker sex. Holbrook's summation of these prophets of Excelsior should interest anyone with even a flickering interest in the history of the country & the evolution of the society we know.--Kirkus
Experience of War: The United States in World War II ,Davis, Kenneth S.
“In his prefatory note, Davis writes that his book is "not designed to be
a formal academic history, though every effort has been made to assure
its factual accuracy. Rather, its essential purpose is literary in that it attempts to rescue from the erosions and abstractions of time something of what Webster's Dictionary, in the definition of 'experience,' calls the, 'actual living through an event or events; actual enjoyment or suffering.' "Review by: A. Russell Buchanan. Source: The Journal of American History, Vol. 52, No. 4 (Mar., 1966), pp. 862-863
The French and Indian Wars: The Story of Battles and Forts in the Wilderness
Hamilton, Edward Pierce
This is in the Internet Archive
"Colonel Hamilton is the first to bring to these colonial wars a full understanding of the technology and to combine with it a felicity of expression. His descriptions of the colonial militia and the European armies does much to correct the erroneous impression that Englishmen never learned the lesson of fighting in the woods and does something to deflate thereputation of the militiamen as the superiors of the regulars. Robert Rogers and his rangers, too, come in for some sound re-evaluation. From these pages, there comes a much clearer appreciation of the ways in which colonial wars were fought, the hardships involved, and the real magnitude of the Anglo-American accomplishment in driving France from the continent”. Review by: Lawrence H. Leder, Source: New York History, Vol. 44, No. 1 (January, 1963), pp. 82-84.
From Lexington to Liberty: The Story of the American Revolution, Lancaster, Bruce.
This is available in the Internet Archive
Glory, God and Gold: A Narrative History, Wellman, Paul I.
"The publishers announce Mr. Wellman's book as an informal history of the Southwest. At least the term "informal" seems to be applicable and it may be conceded at once that this is a pleasantly readable volume, whatever may be its shortcomings." Review by: Rufus Kay Wyllys. Source: Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Feb., 1955), pp. 80-81.
The House Divides: The Age of Jackson and Lincoln: From the War of to the Civil War, Wellman, Paul I.
This is available in the Internet Archive.
Land of Giants: The Drive to the Pacific Northwest, 1750-1950, Lavender, David
"DAVID LAVENDER'S Land of Giants will not disappoint those acquainted with his earlier works, such as Bent's Fort. As a popular, readable, generally accurate, one-volume account of the Pacific Northwest it meets a definite need."
Review by Kenneth Wiggins, Oregon Historical Quarterly, Vol.60.
The Land They Fought For: The Story of the South as the Confederacy 1832-1865, Dowdey, Clifford.
"The author's insight into human nature and adeptness at portraiture enable him in a few pithy sentences to characterize discerningly and vividly such diverse personalities as John Brown, William L. Yancey, Robert Toombs…”
Review in the New York Times, by Bell Wiley, June 12, 1955.
Land Where Our Fathers Died: The Settling of the Eastern-Shores: 1607-1735, Starkey, Marion L.
The Lonesome Road: The Story of the Negro’s Part in America, Redding, J. Saunders
This is available in the Internet Archive.
Men to Match My Mountains: The Opening of the Far West -1840-1900, Stone, Irving.
This is available in the Internet Archive.
The Men Who Made the Nation: Architects of the Young Republic ‒1782-1802, Dos Passos, John.
“For this history, Dos Passos returns to the American colonial period and early nationhood, exploring the personalities who won the nation’s independence from England: Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Adams, and George Washington."Originally called The World Turned Upside Down, The Men Who Made the Nation covers the period from 1781 to Hamilton’s death in 1804. The work crystallizes the author’s fascination with the psychology of the colonial freedom fighter and presents lessons for current American policymakers."
Mr. Wilson’s War, Dos Passos, John
“Mr. Dos Passos is well known for his ability, in fiction, to maintain at once a clear panoramic sweep of an entire era and an intimate understanding of his individual characters; this ability is a salient feature of his handling of fact in the present volume. The politics, the warfare, the social questions, the doubts and dreams and distinctive flavor of the times, everything is treated with a thrillingly readable ""you-are-there"" feeling which, however, does not detract in the least from the tolerant and knowledgeable perspective maintained from start to finish. This should stand with the finest works of Mr. Dos Passos' long and highly distinguished literary career, and is certainly a valuable contribution to the distinguished Mainstream of America Series. In fact, it would be difficult to imagine a better single-volume survey of this multifarious epoch. From Kirkus Reviews.
New Found World: How North America Was Discovered and Explored , Lamb, Harold.
“Fifth in an excellent series, this is chronologically first as it sets the stage for the subsequent volumes. The pageant of discovery Journeys to the New World with Columbus, Verrazano, Vespucci, DeSoto, Cabot, Champlain, and carries as ballast the personal dreams and natural aims which inspired all these and their fellow adventurers. Then continuing on into the 16th century, when discoverers replaced explorers flashing back to pre-history and the dawn-age hunter- ranging from the Inca civilization to the French in Canada, the book has a welcome expansiveness. It probes skillfully the economical and political causes of conquest, particularly in Italy, Spain, Portugal, France and England. It explores the development of primitive astrolabes and sextants; principles of Mercator projection and improved cartography; Hakluyt's chronicles and the published accounts of returning explorers; the intellectual forces of every type that helped shape the course of empire. The pageant of discovery is brought down to its crudest motives. Senseless warfare with the natives stemmed out of senseless quests for El Dorado. Explorers turned into ghouls and slave traders, they burned a village because a silver cup was missing, they used the seductive manners of the court to connive to get the pearls off the neck of a princess. The narrative, rich with incident, detail and quotation from primary sources deliberately individualizes history and puts it on its most instructive level. Adult readers will relish what adolescents newly awakened to their heritage will cherish.” Kirkus Reviews.
The Shackles of Power: Three Jeffersonian Decades, Dos Passos, John
"Shackles of Power completes Dos Passos’s lengthy inquiry into early American political thought with a final tribute to Thomas Jefferson, full of the lyrical passages that typify the author’s fast-paced histories. Rounding out his portrait of America’s “golden age” are treatments of James Madison, James Monroe, and John Quincy Adams.”
This Hallowed Ground: The Story of the Union Side of the Civil War , Catton, Bruce.
This is in the Internet Archive.
“...his history of the American Civil War chronicles the entire war to preserve the Union - from the Northern point of view, but in terms of the men from both sides who lived and died in glory on the fields.”
The Time Between the Wars: Armistice to Pearl Harbor, Daniels, Jonathan.
This is available on the Internet Archive.
Source:
For more details about the "Mainstream of America" book series see:
Series Americana: Post Depression-Era Regional Literature, 1938-1980: A Descriptive Bibliography: Including Biographies of the Authors, Illustrators, and Editors, by Carol Fitzgerald.
