Dave Barry Slept Here: A Sort of History of the United States
Jul 2010 · Ballantine Books
4.4star
20 reviewsreport
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192
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About this ebook
“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
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
Ratings and reviews
4.4
20 reviews
A Google user
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September 19, 2018
Dave Barry's humour has been a staple in my family for decades. This book is a brilliant classic that I and my son's have read again and again over the years. It still makes us laugh hysterically and we have loads of inside family jokes drawn from the passages of this hilarious look at American history. Barry presents history in such a cleverly funny way that that, as much as I hate to admit it, I actually remember a lot of U.S. historical trivia! An example of this is that I will never forget the date that America's Independence is celebrated. It's on October 8th, of course!
2 people found this review helpful
Fritz Schulze
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December 4, 2013
Great read for happy times. Way to go Dave!!!
2 people found this review helpful
Erin A. O'Brien
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October 15, 2019
This book is so hilarious that I actually recall US history better than I could in college!
1 person found this review helpful
About the author
From 1983 to 2004, Dave Barry wrote a weekly humor column for The Miami Herald, which in 1988 won a Pulitzer Prize for Commentary. He is the author of more than thirty books, including such bestsellers as the nonfiction Live Right and Find Happiness (Although Beer Is Much Faster), You Can Date Boys When You're Forty, and I'll Mature When I'm Dead; the novels Big Trouble, Tricky Business, and Insane City; the very successful YA Peter Pan novels (with Ridley Pearson); and his Christmas story The Shepherd, the Angel, and Walter the Christmas Miracle Dog. Two of his books—Big Trouble and Dave Barry's Guide to Guys—have been turned into movies. For a while, his life was even a television series, Dave's World, but then it was canceled. The series. Not the life. For many years, Dave was also a guitarist with the late, infamous, and strangely unlamented band the Rock Bottom Remainders.
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