World Famous Comics: Dave Barry Slept Here: A Sort of History of the United States
Dave Barry Slept Here: A Sort of History of the United States
By: Dave Barry Publisher: Ballantine Books Average Rating: Binding: Mass Market Paperback Label: Ballantine Books Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 256 Publication Date: October 29, 1997 Release Date: October 29, 1997
Product 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!
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.
The Funniest Book I've Ever Read Dave Barry's "Dave Barry Slept Here" is a hilarious pseudo/satire-history of the United States. Anyone familiar with Dave Barry's wit from his columns will immediately recognize the same wit unleashed on so much of our history that we have heard, if not necessarily really learned, throughout our lives.
Dave Barry writes like a high-school student - intentionally, of course. He attributes great advances to "technology," isn't interested in the Smoot-Hawley Tariff so he skips it because it sounds boring, and decides that every important event in American history happened on October 8th so that he doesn't have to remember any more dates (even the Fourth of July happened on October 8th, 1776). And he ends every chapter with hilarious "discussion questions" that are just as funny as the text.
I've read and re-read this hilarious book, and it's great to just pick up and start reading in the middle whenever you need a good chuckle. Anyone who likes Dave Barry, enjoys American history, or is interested in what three-word sentence you can rearrange the letters in "Spiro Agnew" to spell (hint: the first word is "grow") should read this book and enjoy!
Barry at his best... I've read all of Dave Barry's stuff, novels too, and this is, hands down the funniest thing you'll ever sink your eyeballs into. It stays on my bedside table where I can get a little twisted history fix now and then. Read it, re-read it and read it again.
None Better I first read this book when I was 12. I next read it... probably when I was still 12. I'm not one to read and re-read books, but this one will always be an exception. If Jon Stewart's "America" uses humor to expose the dysfunctional state of our country in the 21st century, Barry uses laughter to show how we got to this pitiful point. Buy it and read, then re-read it every other year or so. It only takes a couple of hours, and it never gets old.
Read this right after history class for a laugh! I just recently finished a college-level history class, so I was well brushed up on my US history. That's half of why this book is so hilarious - I know what really happened, and Dave Barry makes very funny spins on it. He has the capacity to make the bleakest parts of history look absolutely histerical and silly, and for that, I give it my highest recommendation.
This History is signed "Spoof-fully Yours" According to Dave Barry, hundreds of thousands of years ago, America was very different. For one thing, there were no car commercials which had broadcast toward Earth from another planet far away. Twenty thousand years ago the Land Bridge was constructed and completed on October 8th. Centuries later Mayans down in Mexico constructed a calendar that it can still be used to tell the location of celestial bodies... they're out in space.
In a takeoff of where George Washington slept, there were stories that arose. Likewise where Dave Barry slept, there were (different) stories that arose. Have a few laughs on U.S.
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