by Sharon McMahon ★★★★☆
It seems as if I'm in the minority, but I had never heard of Sharon McMahon, or as she's fondly referred to by many, "America's Government Teacher" before picking up The Small and the Mighty. As far as I knew, she was just the author of a history book that was getting a ton of buzz in 2024. Sharon rose to prominence four years ago when she started using Instagram to combat misinformation that was flowing from both sides of the aisle, and what started as a few pandemic posts has now garnered her more than 1.2 million followers. In The Small and the Mighty, McMahon focuses on twelve Americans who you may or may not have heard of before, who had a significant impact on an area of American life.
In general, McMahon's muses fall into marginalized groups—women, minorities, formerly enslaved people, for the most part—and in a nation where white men wrote (and thus dominated) history books for much of the country's existence, they are the stories and contributions that in most cases are less well known. Everyone knows Alexander Hamilton and Rosa Parks, who both make appearances in the book. But do you know Gouverneur Morris and Claudette Colvin? After reading The Small and the Mighty, you will.
McMahon's book reads like an entertaining lecture, with the prose particularly conversational for a history book. To illustrate that point, take the following passage:
But five thousand schools? I almost don't even know what to do with that information. Five thousand, y'all, okay? Five thousand. Five followed by three zeroes. Do you know how many children can be educated in five followed by three zeroes schools? A lot. A lot.
I ended up splitting this one between the audiobook and the print version. In the audiobook, McMahon is the reader, and she does an admirable job of performing the book. She brings energy and spunk to every chapter. The conversational tone of the writing clearly is in line with how I'd imagine she'd deliver the same information in the classroom, so the reading of the material feels natural. However, despite also having a popular podcast, let's just say that McMahon doesn't have the most soothing voice. It's a bit annoying (especially if you're listening at something faster than 1x speed), and both Stephanie and I had the same reaction to it.
While I'm pretty certain I know which way McMahon generally votes, the book is more-or-less centrist in its points of view. McMahon does call out the nuance in history, and encourage people to embrace that nuance rather than cast people into camps. "Our minds want to categorize people into one of two camps: Good or evil. Angel or demon. Most often, that viewpoint denies people the fullness of their humanity and can overlook positive contributions or ignore negative impacts."
She also holds a strong belief that the media—both mainstream and social—is building division among Americans like never before. While she doesn't address coming together as frequently in the book as she does on Instagram or her podcast, she does occasionally call out the challenges. After recounting one particularly crazy event that happened in the Senate during the 19th century that left a senator incapacitated for three years, she writes the following:
"So no, America is not 'the worst it's ever been' today, despite what some news anchors might be trying to convince you of, because if they can make you afraid, they can gain your attention and your money. Has anyone been beaten half to death on the floor of the Senate over the topic of whether it's cool to enslave people this week? No? Okay."
For history buffs or just average Americans looking for a non-fiction read, The Small and the Mighty is more entertaining than most in the category. While the conversational tone might suggest otherwise, McMahon did her research and dived deeply into each of her subjects, and the book is thoroughly annotated just like any scholarly work. Although McMahon doesn't overtly acknowledge it in the book, an interesting connection point between almost all of her subjects is education. Whether it was breaking down educational barriers, building schools, bringing education to underserved communities, or reinvesting in America through contributions that led to the above, almost everyone she profiles had a hand in educating America. As a teacher, it's natural that McMahon would find an affinity with those folks, and while I don't know if it played a role in her choosing them (subconsciously or not), it is an interesting tie among those profiled.
Overall, it's an entertaining look at a few lesser-known influential people across several hundred years of American history through stories you almost certainly haven't heard. I think some of my total enjoyment suffered a bit from inflated expectations—The Small and the Mighty was Amazon's #5 book of 2024 and is averaging 4.8 stars (4.6 on Goodreads). It's good, but it's not that good, in my humble opinion. While I enjoyed reading it (more than listening to it), it didn't rise to a level of "oh my god you have to read this", and it settled in for me at something closer to a 4.
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