Dave Barry Slept Here: A Sort of History of the United States - Softcover

Dave Barry

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0345416600 ISBN 13: 9780345416605

Publisher: Ballantine Books, 1997

Synopsis

“What caused the American Revolution? This is indeed a rhetorical question that for many years historians have begun chapters with. As well they should. For the American Revolution is without a doubt the single most important historical event to occur in this nation except of course for Super Bowl III (Jets 16. Colts 7. This historian won $35).”

So goes the skewed sensibility, the muddied mind, the bent pen of one of America's funniest writers, Dave Barry. This time his subject is U.S. history, the way it's never been told before. Every single momentous event and crucial moment is covered, including . . . 

· The Birthing Contractions of a Nation
· Kicking Some British Butt
· Barging Westward
· The Forging of a Large, Wasteful Bureaucracy
· Deep Economic Doo-doo
· The Fifties: Peace, Prosperity, Brain Death

. . . and right up through the scintillating Reagan-Bush years, during which, Mr. Barry notes, America is steadfastly Napping Toward Glory.

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 a right to a trial before a jury of people too stupid to get out of jury duty,” Dave Barry Slept Here is the book you've been waiting for since 1776. Or at least since Super Bowl III.

Praise for Dave Barry Slept Here

“A dazzling performance . . . Barry is brilliant.”—The Washington Post Book World

“[Dave] 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 this title

Review:

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 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...

About this edition

• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0345416600
• ISBN 13: 9780345416605
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 256