History At Its Finest: A Review of Black Reconstruction by W.E.B. Du Bois

W.E.B. Du Bois: Black Reconstruction by W.E.B. Du Bois

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

While the history of the American Civil War is quite well known by most Americans thanks to some amazing books and documentaries, the decade-long period immediately following it known as Reconstruction is little known and little understood by most. In fact, thanks to ahistorical mythologies like the “Lost Cause” narrative, Reconstruction has been painted as a dark period when corruption was rampant and Southern state governments, run by Freedmen and Northern carpetbaggers, ran roughshod over people’s rights. The historical record shows that this couldn’t be further from the truth, yet this insidious myth persists. Fortunately, there are also plenty of books that have been written to push back against this narrative and establish the true history of Reconstruction. While many such books have been written in recent years, nearly all of them owe an enormous debt of gratitude to this book, one of the very first systematic histories of the period to tell the story truly. What makes this a must-read for anyone interested in Reconstruction is how W.E.B. Du Bois centers Black Americans in this tale. In this book, Mr. Du Bois makes the strongest case for what has been said by others before: that Black Americans, the enslaved as well as the free, were their own greatest liberators and Reconstruction’s greatest reformers.

While W.E.B Du Bois is best known today as the author of such works as The Soul of Black Folk and one of the founders of the NAACP, he was also the first Black men in America to receive a doctorate from Harvard.  Published in 1935, this book is the culmination of some of Du Bois’s scholarly work, which he had been hitting upon at different times in his scholarly and popular articles decades before.  Starting with an examination of the condition of both enslaved Black people and their White enslavers in the Antebellum South, Du Bois takes his reader on a journey through the 20 year period that encompassed both the Civil War and Reconstruction.  At each step, he shows through critical analysis of the sources available to him at the time how Black Americans’ own actions were what drove many of the key changes of this period.  For example, with so many enslaved Black Americans escaping to Union lines and many of them as well as freedmen from the North eager to join the Union Army, their actions put pressure on Pres. Lincoln and the Union to transform their Civil War objectives from solely from preserving the Union to also pursing abolition.  Du Bois also shows how Black lawmakers during Reconstruction were the prime agents in the creation of the South’s public school system for both white and black kids after the war, a reform that would stay in place long after White Southerns had forcefully and violently suppressed political power.

Du Bois also addresses some of the criticism of this period, particularly the corruption that Black lawmakers were accused of partaking.  While not deny that there were cases of bribery and corruption, Du Bois helps to put it in the context of the time, which was an incredibly corrupt period in American history in general, and shows how oftentimes the corrupt actions of white lawmakers was far greater than anything Black lawmakers did.  Not only that, but Du Bois constantly reminds readers that Reconstruction was an extraordinarily violent time with many atrocities committed against Black Americans.  Racial terror and the undermining of America’s first attempt at multiracial democracy was the goal of groups like the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups.  Du Bois makes the argument that the Civil War never really stopped after Appomattox Courthouse, but morphed into a racial war of white supremacists targeting Black Americans.  Indeed, thinking of the racial violence through that lens and using Du Bois’s analysis, Du Bois may not have had the words for it in 1935, but readers who are even casually versed in the history of modern warfare can recognize the resemblance of the Klan’s violent tactics as similar to the Vietcong during the Vietnam War or the Taliban during the war in Afghanistan.  Sadly, as Du Bois shows, the North quickly grew weary of sustaining a military presence in the South and abandoned the project after 1876, a pattern America would follow in Vietnam and Afghanistan using similar arguments (“They got to learn to stand on their own feet eventually”) and having similarly tragic results.  Du Bois analyzes the reasons for the North’s withdrawal in 1876 and shows how it opened the door not just to the end of Reconstruction and Black Americans’s political power for decades, but also how it opens the door to the segregated America that follows soon afterwards.

One weakness of this book though lies in Du Bois’s Marxist background.  By the 1930s, Du Bois was firmly moving in a Marxist direction and he uses Marxist language and thought in his analysis throughout this book.  While this class approach to analyzing the period provides intriguing insights, I do feel as though Du Bois could stretch his Marxist analysis at times.  For example, while an alliance between Black labor and poor White labor in the South could have transformed the history of the period, I have doubts that large numbers of Americans could even conceive of society in such class conscious ways at the time.  Yes, Karl Marx was alive and organizing in Europe at the time and had written The Communist Manifesto in 1848, but his magnum opus, Das Kapital, was published in 1867 and I doubt his ideas had spread quickly enough in America at the time to have any effect.  I could be wrong, but to me Du Bois too often applied a class analysis that Black and White Americans would not have recognized during this period.

Overall, though this book is nearly 90 years old now, Du Bois’s strong analysis and exceptional historical writing provides a gold standard by which all other histories of Reconstruction should be judged.  Library of America has once again done an enormous service to American literary history by publishing this seminal work once again.  I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in American history in general and Reconstruction in particular.

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The Whole Truth: A Review of The 1619 Project edited by Nikole Hannah-Jones

The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story by Nikole Hannah-Jones

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

One of my favorite scenes in my favorite Indiana Jones movie, The Last Crusade, is the moment when Henry Jones, Sr., played by the legendary screen actor Sean Connery, is being slapped around by the Nazi colonel demanding to know where Jones’s Holy Grail Diary is. But when the colonel asks, “What does the diary tell you that it doesn’t tell us?”, Jones grabs the colonel’s hand before he can slap him again and says, “It tells me that goose-stepping morons life yourself should try reading books instead of burning them!” I bring that scene up in the context of this book review because, as of this writing, scores of “parent groups” across the United States are trying to force public schools and libraries to remove books about BIPOC and/or LGBTQ+ topics from their shelves. This particular book has been at the center of many of these efforts ever since the first articles of this project were published in The New York Times Magazine in August 2019. Having just finished this book, I have to say that it is one of the best books about American history that I have read in a long time. The authors and editors of this book make the best case for why Black Americans’s 400+ year freedom struggle should be at the center of how we tell the story of America, and, to paraphrase Henry Jones, Sr., people must read this book instead of trying to ban it.

Building upon The New York Times Magazine articles that were first published, this book tells America’s history from the perspective of Black Americans with articles and works of poetry and fiction written by Black authors.  Starting with the first enslaved Africans being brought to the Jamestown colony in 1619, the authors document several different aspects of American life that have been affected by our country’s history of slavery and racial oppression.  In some ways, the concept and overall framework is very similar to another book that came out just a few months earlier than this, Four Hundred Souls edited by Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain.  The key difference is that authors in this book are given an ample amount of space to discuss a particular topic, like medicine, music, or democracy, from the very beginning through the present, whereas in Four Hundred Souls authors a kept to a 5 page limit looking at a specific topic within a 5 year period in American history.  Because of that, the authors in The 1619 Project have the space to fully flesh out their topic and demonstrate how America’s past echoes strongly in our present.  Thus, the approach that this book provides a clearer picture and more impactful thesis in each chapter.

Each chapter of the book is divided into different topics with works of poetry and fiction separating each topic and providing a rough timeline of American history.  In anthology works such as these, I oftentimes find that the quality from work to work can vary wildly.  That is not so in this book.  Each chapter is top notch with excellent writing and research that both proves each author’s point and is incredibly engaging to read.  At no point did I feel bored or unconvinced.  The works of poetry and fiction that separate the chapters may appear superfluous at first glance, but in reality serve a vital function of marking out keep moments in American history, providing an artistic break between each chapter’s often thought-provoking topics, and inserting a creative outlet for what the authors and readers are feeling after each chapter.  

In short, this book is a monumental achievement in popular history writing that the editors and authors should be proud of.  I have nothing but absolute praise for this work and if there is one book on American history that you read this year, you owe it to yourself to read this one.

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Moving Towards Zion: A Review of The Story of the Jews, Vol. 2: Belonging, 1492-1900 by Simon Schama

The Story of the Jews Volume Two: Belonging: 1492-1900 by Simon Schama

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The recent surge of anti-semitism in Europe and America has been heart breaking, especially when that anti-semitism led to violence at a Pittsburgh synagogue by a white supremacist terrorist in 2018. Sadly, Jewish history is fraught with such tragedies, even before you get to the Holocaust under the Nazis. But Jewish history is far more than these senseless tragedies. In this second volume to his planned trilogy, historian Simon Schama traces the history of the Jewish people from the Renaissance to the dawn of the 20th century, laying out in dense detail their many triumphs and tragedies and their persistence in the face of unbelievable hardships.

Starting right where he left off in volume one, Mr. Schama details how the constant attacks on the Jewish people forced them to adapt and migrate multiple times.  What is interesting is that the beginning and end of this narrative are bookended by messianic movements that led Jews to try to migrate out of Europe and into Palestine.  The earliest attempts were not always successful, but the last one detailed by Mr. Schama leads readers into the beginning of the Zionist movement, which will lead to the creation of the modern state of Israel in the 20th century.  It was fascinating to see how Jewish people could be just as susceptible to messianic movements and false messiahs in the same way that Christians of this period could.  It seems looking forward to a better world and trying to proactively bring it about is not exclusive to any single religious group.

Though the descriptions of anti-semitic assaults are difficult to read, Mr. Schama does a great job of walking his readers through it and drawing a subtle line from the attempts at forced conversions and the creation of the ghettos in the 16th century, and the nationalistic anti-semitism of 19th century Germany, which would be supercharged by the Nazis later.  Yet, in the midst of these terrible trials, Mr. Schama also paints several portraits of fascinating characters in Jewish history.  People like Shabbetai Zevi, Moses Mendelssohn, Uriah Levy, and so many others are absolutely fascinating in this book.  Also, Mr. Schama’s details about the rise of Sephardi, Ashkenazi, and Kabbalah Judaism are interesting too.

Another great aspect of this book is how Mr. Schama describes how the age of Enlightenment and the French Revolution promised to amicably assimilate Jews into the wider European culture, but it was a promise that was never fully realized.  As soon as France and other nations offered a hand, once Jewish groups tried to take it, they would find that it was almost always filled with empty promises.  The failure of the Enlightenment’s assimilation promises, combined with a new and virulent form of anti-semitism by the late 19th century, creates the historical backdrop for the forming of the Zionist movement.

However, this is not an easy book to get through.  This book is stuffed to the brim with details and stories that it implores you to read it slowly.  Skipping or speed-reading a single paragraph means that you will inevitably miss important details and get lost pretty quickly.  This is, without question, one of the densest history books I have ever read. In fact it is denser than his previous volume.  Do not start this book expecting to get through it quickly.  I did, and I ended up having to pause my reading or slow it down considerably just to get through it all.

Overall, this is a fascinating book, but one that is incredibly dense and begs its readers to chew on it slowly, rather than to rush through.  I look forward to reading Mr. Schama’s third volume and hope that it will be released sooner rather than later.

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A Final Link to the Past: A Review of Barracoon by Zora Neale Hurston

Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo" by Zora Neale Hurston

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

At the dawn of the 20th century, historians, sociologists, and folklorists fanned out across the country to gather up the stories of people across America who had lived through dramatic times, particularly the Civil War. The narratives of formerly enslaved African-Americans were especially prized. In 1927, Zora Neale Hurston, not quite yet the author and oral historian people would remember her to be, interviewed an African by the name of Cudjo Lewis, who at the time was the last surviving African to be captured in Africa, sold into slavery, and shipped across the “Middle Passage” to America. Through these interviews, Ms. Hurston retells Cudjo Lewis’s life to modern readers in this fine, but short book.

The Atlantic Slave Trade was officially abolished in 1808, but that did not stop white enslavers from trying to ship new cargo loads of enslaved Africans to these shores.  The Clotilda was one of the last slave ships to make the journey, carrying over 100 Africans into slavery in America in 1860, on the very eve of the Civil War.  Cudjo Lewis, or Kossula as he was known in Africa, was one of those enslaved Africans and when Ms. Hurston began to interview in the late 1920s, he was the last survivor from that ship.  Mr. Lewis describes his life in Africa, from his tribe to his father’s esteemed position as a royal bodyguard, in idyllic terms.  In contrast, his description of the massacre of his tribe by another African tribe, which led to the beheading of his king right in front of him and his subsequent life in slavery, is horrifying.  Once he is freed by Union soldiers at the end of the Civil War, his life as a free man in the segregated South is just as tragic.  Mr. Lewis relates how nearly all of his children were murdered by white supremacy in one way or another by the dawn of the 20th century.  It is an absolutely heartbreaking story.

That said, the actual narrative of Cudjo Lewis’s life is rather short.  For a story that covers well over 60 years, Ms. Hurston manages to fit his life story into less than 100 pages, with about another 20 or so pages dedicated to some miscellaneous tales Mr. Lewis told.  Though Ms. Hurston may have been restricted by what Mr. Lewis relayed to her, and though Ms. Hurston tried to supplement his recollections with outside sources, this story goes by way too fast.  I would not have minded if Ms. Hurston had lingered on certain parts of Mr. Lewis’s narrative either with her own thoughts or with some supplemental materials.

One other thing that made this book difficult to love was Ms. Hurston’s use of dialect.  This book written early in her career, Ms. Hurston tries to capture exactly what Cudjo Lewis was saying and how he said it through the use dialect.  The idea, from my little bit of research, is that the characters like Cudjo Lewis are suppose to feel more real and alive than if Ms. Huston had tried to translate his dialect into plain language.  But, to me, dialect just makes it more difficult to understand what is being said and, thus, there were a few things I had missed that needed to be pointed out to me in the afterword by this book’s editor, Deborah G. Plant.  Ms. Hurston proved in her later novels, Moses, Man of the Mountain and Serpah on the Suwanee (which I am currently making my way through in the Library of America’s great collection of her novels & short stories) that it is possible to relay the flavor of dialect without actually writing in dialect.  To me, the use of dialect here does not make Cudjo Lewis’s story more real, it just adds an unnecessary layer of complexity.  

I must commend the editor though for including two things in particularly that make this book a little better.  First, her own afterword where she reviews some of the key points of the tale was critical.  For example, I did not fully understand what had happened to Cudjo Lewis’s children while reading his account, so the afterword helped to clear up some confusion that I had.  Second, the inclusion of Alice Walker’s essay “In Search of Zora Neale Hurston” at the back of the book was fascinating.  If you have not read that essay, then you should, even if you have already read and loved Zora Neale Hurston’s works.

Overall, this book is fine, but it is a little short and, due to Ms. Hurston’s use of dialect, difficult to read at times.  But, Cudjo Lewis’s tale is a necessary reading as a reminder of the oppressive systems created in America that enslaved and terrorized Africans and African-Americans for centuries.  This is a book not just for fans of Zora Neale Hurston, but for people who are also interested in the history of both Antebellum and Jim Crow oppression Africans and African-Americans faced during the 19th century.

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Crying Out for Freedom from the Other Side of American History: A Review of An African American and Latinx History of the United States by Paul Ortiz

An African American and Latinx History of the United States by Paul Ortiz

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

America has a long history of promoting democracy and human rights, but also denying those basic rights to African-Americans and Latinx people. While there are a lot of histories that look at the history of both African-Americans and Latinx people as oppressed groups, nearly all of them treat each group separately. While there is great value in doing so, it does leave out the ways in which both groups supported each other’s fight for freedom and democratic rights and also implicitly perpetuates the false narrative that these two groups’ struggles are distinct from each other. In this incredible examination of American history from the point of view of both groups, Dr. Ortiz links both of their struggles for freedom and shows how America has too often been on the wrong side of history and freedom not just in America, but in its dealings with the Americas too.

As part of Beacon Press’s ReVisioning America series, which also has published such great books as An Indigenous People’s History of the United States and A Queer History of the United States for Young Readers, the goal of this book is to reexamine American history through a different lens.  Too often American history has been filtered through a predominately White POV that emphasizes our country’s many high points while only giving a superficial examination of America’s racist and oppressive past.  Dr. Ortiz tosses that White narrative out the window and focuses instead on the perspective of African-Americans and Latinx people.  The result is not the flattering picture most Americans already know.  African-Americans were enslaved for a good chunk of American history and faced exploitation, legalized segregation, and mass violence after the Civil War.  Latinx people in America, though never enslaved, also were exploited, segregated, and murdered by White Americans too, along with being deported unjustly when labor conditions were poor.  Thus, American history through this perspective is dark, oppressive, and never in keeping with the high ideals we claim to have founded this country on.  

The greatest value of this book though is not in treating African-Americans and Latinx groups as separate, but linking these two groups’ history and showing how each group at their best have supported each other’s struggles for freedom and basic human rights both at home and abroad.  Dr. Ortiz does a fantastic job of cataloging how African-Americans paid attention to and supported the revolutions in the Americas, drawing inspiration from them for their own early freedom struggles.  He also shows how Latinx people abroad supported African-American’s struggles for freedom in Antebellum America.  And once this book moves beyond the Mexican-American War and the Civil War, Dr. Ortiz catalogs the important contributions both groups made to the advancement of civil rights and labor rights in the 20th and 21st centuries.  It is fair to say that without both groups working both separately and together, American history would be tragically different.

Though Dr. Ortiz’s book is great, it is not perfect.  In the first few chapters, the narrative balance between both groups is tilted more towards coverage of African-Americans.  Granted, these chapters deal with pre-Civil War America, so the plight of African-Americans should take center stage at this point.  Also, once we get past the Civil War, Latinx people become a larger part of the narrative and the oppressive system of racial capitalism begins to grind both groups.  Thus, the narrative begins to balance out and Dr. Ortiz’s book starts firing on all cylinders.  Still, I wish he could’ve maintained a better narrative balance from the very beginning.

Too often the voices of African-Americans and Latinx people have been silenced or disbelieved.  The great value of a book like this is that it offers a counter-narrative to the simplistically naive story Americans are used to and acts as a clarion call for America to live up to its highest ideals of liberty and equality for all, as both African-Americans and Latinx people have been demanding from the very beginning.  Americans of all races, colors, and creeds should read this book along with other books in this series, repent, and resolve to justly apply our founding principles to all people in our country and abroad.

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Plodding through Communism's Fall: A Review of Secondhand Time by Svetlana Alexievich

Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets by Svetlana Alexievich

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The fall of the Soviet Union is a watershed moment in the history of the 20th century and is often viewed by the West as a triumphant moment. But what about the people of the Soviet Union who lived through it? Svetlana Alexievich attempts to gives voice to the ordinary Russians and people living under the Soviets in this book and, many times, offers compelling oral testimony about what the end of communism looked like on the inside, but too often is unbearably slow and lacking in any meaningful context to help a Western reader orient themselves.

If you are living in the West, especially in the United States, before you pick up this book you should keep in mind that you are definitely not the intended audience.  This was written in Russian for Russian-speaking people.  Throughout the book there are references to Soviet political and cultural icons many of whom are incredibly obscure to a Western audience.  They are so obscure in fact that this book is littered with footnotes from the editor explaining who this person was.  Normally, footnotes are not a problem, but there are so many here that it may make it difficult for a Western reader to fully immerse themselves in this world.

Another thing to keep in mind about this book is that it is an oral history and one that is quite unlike any other oral history you may have read before.  In most oral histories, the author will interject some narrative and context behind the person who is speaking, maybe even a little biography of the person and their background.  Ms. Alexievich forgoes all of that in favor of letting the speaker completely speak for themselves.  She never mentions what questions she asked to get such responses from her subjects and only rarely jumps in with with some italicized narrative throughout the book.  Reading this book is the equivalent of reading a series of longwinded interviews with the interviewer almost entirely scrubbed out of the story.  

This refusal to inject herself into the book’s narrative can be both a blessing and a curse.  With some of her most interesting subjects, such as those who were either in the Kremlin or were apart of some of the critical moments, such as the August 1991 putsch in Moscow or the demonstrations against President Lukashenko in Belarus.  These were some of the best and most dramatic parts of this book.  However, a lot of this book does not center around these key historical events.  Thus, many of the interviews have this searching quality to it with people asking what did it all mean?  What did Soviets fight for in the Second World War if communism would just end?  Is the capitalist system that replaced it any better?  For a Russian-speaking reader, there may be some identification with these pondering, but for a Western reader with little love for the Soviet Union, not so much.  Thus again, Western readers may have trouble sympathizing with some of the subjects in this book.  

Then there are the purely ordinary Soviets just trying to live their lives in a new world.  Again some of these stories are interesting, but others are so melodramatic as to be almost a parody of life in Russia.  There are copious stories about alcohol abuse and domestic violence throughout this book and particularly in the second half.  Indeed, almost no marriage in this book doesn’t include alcoholism or domestic abuse or both.  The first few tales are interesting, but the ninth or tenth time it is told become repetitive and maudlin.  None of this is helped by the glacial space of this book.  Many of the chapters are unbearably slow, tedious reading.  This is not a book you should pick up for a quick breezy read as you should expect to sink a lot of time into reading it.

Ultimately, this book is a very mixed bag.  Some stories are incredibly fascinating and dramatic, especially the ones that link up with key historical moments.  But many other are incredibly slow, plodding stories with very little narrative meat for people to orient or attach themselves to.  If you are someone who is already familiar with this period in Russian history or already have your head soaked in the tales of ordinary modern life in Russia and the former Soviet states, you might find this book rather interesting.  However, if you’ve never learned about the fall of the Soviet Union and want to do so, read something else like The Future is History by Masha Gessen first before picking this book up.  

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The American Sphinx Speaks: A Review of Thomas Jefferson's Writings from the Library of America

Writings: Autobiography / Notes on the State of Virginia / Public and Private Papers / Addresses / Letters by Thomas Jefferson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, third President of the United States, and founder of the University of Virginia, is one of the more elusive Founding Father’s to pin down. Like Benjamin Franklin, he was a polymath with a deep interest in the many scientific undertakings of his age and was a consummate, though reluctant (at least according to himself), politician. At times he could be seemingly all over the place. What this book of Jefferson’s public papers and letters does is let readers peer more deeply into his mind and soul than the many biographies written of him since his death, but at the cost of creating one extremely long volume.

This book is divided into several parts including: an autobiography he wrote for his children and grandchildren; his “Summary View of the Rights of British America”, which was a prototype of the Declaration of Independence; his famous “Notes on the State of Virginia”; his public papers, letters, addresses and replies; and finally the private letters he wrote throughout his life.  By examining all of these together, one can really get the sense of Jefferson was as a person and where he stood on the key issues of the day.  Though some historians have painted Jefferson as a bit of a political opportunist and an enigma, by allowing Jefferson’s writings to speak for themselves one can see that he was a man of principle and resolve with a keen interest in advancing the sciences.  Not everything Jefferson wrote down or said will jive well with a modern audience, particularly his views on African-Americans and African colonization.  Still, for better or worse, much of America’s identity as a democratic nation comes from Jefferson’s writings and politics.

Though this volume does a great job of letting Jefferson speak for himself, it is WAY too long.  At 1600 pages, this is one of the longest books in the Library of America’s collection and is equal in size to a standard copy of the Bible.  Though I had planned on finishing this in a month, it took me over six weeks to read this book from cover to cover.  There is an opportunity though for Library of America to rectify this by splitting Jefferson’s writings into two volumes, as they have done with other presidents such as John Adams, John Quincy Adams, and Theodore Roosevelt.  About half of the book is made up of Jefferson’s autobiography and public addresses and papers.  The other half are Jefferson’s private letters.  Library of America could split this into two volumes between his public and private papers and may even make more room for more of Jefferson’s private letters, which were some of the most interesting and accessible reads.  As it stands right now though, this volume is better used as a reference for lay readers rather than something to be read from cover to cover.

Like other Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson left behind a legacy of liberty, but also of contradictions.  As America continues to strive to live up to its founding ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, looking back on how the founding generation both succeeded and failed at the same endeavor will be immensely educational and hopeful.  Though some may struggle to make it through this volume, there is real value in reading and understanding the thoughts and actions of Thomas Jefferson and the other Founding Fathers.  I recommend this book to people interested in learning about Jefferson first hand and are willing to devote time and effort to do so.

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Reckoning with a (Racist) Past: A Review of Stony the Road by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow by Henry Louis Gates Jr.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As America continues to grapple with its checkered past in the wake of recent and ongoing Black Lives Matter protests, one period that is seeing a resurgence of interest is the Reconstruction period. Between the end of the Civl War and the Compromise of 1876, America made its first tentative forays into multiracial democracy and equality. Eric Foner’s book Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution 1863-1877 is a critically praised history of that period worth a look. But what Dr. Gates contributes in this book is a cultural history of Reconstruction and the immediate period afterwards known as Redemption. While the racist imagery in this book can be hard to look at at times, Dr. Gates does a great job of showing the violent and propagandistic origins of many of today’s racial issues, but also how important Black artistic movements, particularly the Harlem Renaissance, were to resisting these racist narratives.

The first thing you need to know about this book is that it is not a straight narrative history.  There are not a lot of dates or explanations of key historical events during the Reconstruction and Redemption periods.  Thus the narrative can often go back and forth through time.  One minute Dr. Gates may be talking about something that happened in 1886, then move forward to something in 1903, then back to 1877.  What the reader needs to keep in mind though is that this book is structured thematically, with the first three chapters showing the origin and perpetuation of violent and racist myths about this period in this period, myths that still plague America to this day.  Each chapter also comes with a section of photographs and images from the period, much of which is incredibly difficult to look at.  It includes some of the most racist images I’ve ever seen in a book and it even includes some gruesome photographs of lynched Black Americans.  Anyone who is triggered by violent or racist imagery, be warned.

The best part about this book is how it is all tied up neatly at the end.  The last chapter is about Black Americans’ response to the white supremacy that robbed them of their rights and lives.  As Black Americans struggled to define themselves as a people after the collapse of Reconstruction and the violent rise of white supremacy, it led to incredible instances of artistic expression.  If the Redemption period from 1876 to the early 20th century is the counter-revolution that overturned Black Americans’ gains during Reconstruction and established white supremacy across much of the South, then Dr. Gates makes a great argument for considering the Harlem Renaissance as a cultural counter counter-revolution that sought to overturn the racist imagery and mythology of the Redemption period.  Through the great works of artists and scholars such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Alain Locke, and others, the racist stereotypes of Black Americans perpetuated by white supremacists became much more difficult to uphold, thus paving the way culturally for the Civil Rights Movement of the mid 20th century.

While this may not be the narrative history of Reconstruction I thought it would be, Dr. Gates nevertheless offers a valuable contribution to our understanding of this vital period of American history.  Though the racist and violent imagery may be difficult to see, I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about this period in American history that now feels more relevant than ever.

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A Necessary Book: A Review of How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

As the Trump era comes to a close and race relations, among many other things in this country, have reached a new low, especially after the summer of Black Lives Matter protests last year, people of goodwill have been looking for ways to break the country and themselves free from America’s white supremacist past and present. One of the newest paradigms shifts in thinking about achieving racial equality in America is antiracism, yet few know what exactly this means. In this wonderful book, Dr. Kendi not only illuminates the deeper meanings and workings of antiracism, but also charts his own personal development into antiracist work.

Like the book So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo, Dr. Kendi talks about racism and antiracism both from experience and from deep academic research.  His previous work, Stamped from the Beginning, would be an excellent book to read before this one, along with Ms. Oluo’s.  However, what distinguishes this book from other recent works of antiracism is both the deeper insight’s and definitions Dr. Kendi explores, but this is a book anchored in his own humanity, humility, and self-reflection.  Almost every chapter has some personal anecdote that leads into his antiracist point and many of them are critical of his own faults and failings earlier in his life.  Thus, by reflecting on his own past failings, Dr. Kendi invites his readers to explore their own past failings where they have failed to treat others, particularly BIPOC and LGBTQ+ people, with equal dignity and respect.  As Dr. Kendi explored his own development towards antiracism, I even found myself reflecting on my own failings and resolving to do better in the future.

It can be too easy for people to point out racist ideas, acts, or policies, but it is much more difficult to point to our own racist thoughts and actions and work to improve ourselves.  Dr. Kendi’s excellent, well-though out and deeply reflective work, can help all of us to do so.  There is a reason why this book has been on a lot of antiracism reading lists and I have no criticisms to give this book.  For anyone who has read So You Want To Talk About Race, Stamped from the Beginning, or other antiracism works, you must read this book next.

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America's Prophet: A Review of Fredrick Douglass by David Blight

Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom by David W. Blight
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The 19th century in American history is filled with amazing historical figures, but few stand out as much as Fredrick Douglass. In this wonderful biography, Mr. Blight dives to deep into the life of the preeminent American of the 19th century and, by doing so, holds up a mirror to an America once again having to reckon with its dark racial past.

The life of Fredrick Douglass is one that many Americans already know as he wrote three different and highly praised autobiographies at various times in his life. Born into slavery, Douglass taught himself how to read, escaped from slavery, and became one of the greatest abolitionists of the period. He would go on to use his voice and his pen to denounce slavery in the South and racism in the North, recruit black soldiers for the Union effort during the Civil War, and hold the country accountable to the promises it made to former slaves during Reconstruction and long afterwards. Mr. Blight deftly navigates Douglass' career and gives a nuanced picture of the fiery American prophet. At the same time, Mr. Blight also reveals the home life that sustained and frustrated him, particularly in the latter half of his life. All the while, he doesn't look away from Douglass' faults, particularly his prejudicial language towards Native Americans and Catholics, or the compromises he would make later in life as a loyal-to-a-fault member of the Republican party. Thus, this biography gives one of the fullest pictures you are likely to find of Douglass anywhere.

The best part of this biography is how not a word is wasted even in such a large biography. At times Mr. Blight can get a wee bit preachy, but it is always in the context of Douglass' life and it never really feels out of place. Thus, this biography is not just a life of Douglass the man, but a call to America, past and present, to heed Old Man Eloquent's words and live up to its promises of liberty and justice for all as laid down in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and especially the Reconstruction amendments.

Whether this is you are new to the life of Fredrick Douglass or not, this is a necessary biography for our times on one of the most important figures in American history. I highly recommend this book to all interested in American history or in the lives of great Americans.

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Tragedy Upon Tragedy: A Review of Assad or We Burn the Country

Assad or We Burn the Country: How One Family's Lust for Power Destroyed Syria by Sam Dagher
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Of all the tragic events that became known collectively as the Arab Spring, the Syrian Civil War is perhaps the most tragic, the most well known, and the least understood. For one brief, shining moment, it appeared that a new Middle East was possible free of dictatorships and terror. Syria seemed on the brink of change only for its ruthless dictator, Bashar al-Assad, to deem survival worth any cost, event the lives of thousands of his own people, millions of refugees, and a resurgence of Islamic extremist terror groups across the region and the world. In this detailed account, Mr. Dagher takes his reader into the inner sanctum of the Assad regime, the protest movement, the international community, and the rebellion to give one of the most complete accounts of the Syrian regime, its origins, and the series of events that led to such a brutal civil war.

To fully understand the conflict, Mr. Dagher takes the reader all the way back to the origins of the modern Syrian state and the rise of Hafez al-Assad, Bashar's father and the dictator of Syrian from the 1970s until his death in 2000. Sadly, the roots of Syria's trouble lie in the lies and fears that make up the Assad regime from the very beginning, with a foundation soaked in blood as Haze also ruthlessly put down challenges to his rule too. All throughout, Mr. Dagher follows the Tlass clan starting with Mustafa Tlass and then his son Manaf as they assist the Assads' rise to power. Through the Tlass', and Manaf especially, we get a clearer picture of the inner workings of the regime and how duplicitous and ruthless Bashar and others were in deciding to violently suppress peaceful protestors as the Arab Spring reaches Syria. Because of Bashar's choice to stay in power at all costs, Syria soon devolves into a morass of blood and death with international powers either looking on rousing the Syrian people to further their own agendas. It's a tragedy that only gets more tragic as it goes along.

This book really helped clarify what was always a complicated topic for me. Mr. Dagher never wavers from pointing nearly all of the blame at Bashar al-Assad, but he also makes sure to point figures at all the international figures who looked on or actively assisted the Assad regime slaughter its own people. The only thing I have against this book is that the narrative begins to lose steam once (view spoiler)[Manaf defects to the West and it becomes clear that the West is not interested in using him to replace Bashar, as was his hope (hide spoiler)]. From that point on, the end seems inevitable, but the tragedies continue to pile on top of each other.

The Syrian Civil War is one of the greatest tragedies of the Arab Spring and the 21st century so far. With moral clarity and inside information, Mr. Dagher has written an account that should not be missed.

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Everything is Better: A Review of Factfulness

Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World--and Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The news seems to always be filled with bad news. Even without the threat of COVID-19, the news is littered with stories of violence, illness, and death. While this may be a more dramatic story, it unfortunately hides the major story of the last 50+ years: that on nearly every indicator (health, education, the economy, etc.) the world has made an extraordinary amount of progress. Enter Hans Rosling and this wonderful book to correct the misperceptions of the affluent "West".

This book could've easily fallen into a trap of pure humanistic triumphalism, but Mr. Rosling has done more than just list a series of good news items that are routinely missed. He also challenges our preconceived notions about why things are terrible in the world and addresses why we think that way too. At the same time, each chapter is filled with strategies about how one can reorient their mind and try to think of the world both positively and rightly.

This is a wonderful book filled with great charts and figures. A few of them have to be walked through by the author, but once you see where the data is pointing after the first few chapters, it is easier to predict where the other sets of data are pointing. What is most invaluable is how Mr. Rosling tries to make his reader drop the typical "West vs. the Rest" or "Us vs. Them" mentality and instead think of the world as on four different economic levels. This allows one to see the incredible progress the world has made in closing so many gaps on so many levels. Today, most people in the world do not live in extreme poverty, though it still exists. And that brings up another great point about this book, which is Mr. Rosling's use of maxims to illustrate his points. One of his most memorable is to think of the state of the world as "bad, but getting better." It's a little more complicated than that though, but I do not want to spoil anything for you.

One thing I will say about this book is that at times he seems to bash on the media a bit too much. Granted, Mr. Rosling does humbly admit that he is probably too harsh on the media, but it still stands out. Also, this is not a book that I would read alone. This is a book that demands to be read and discussed with other people so that you don't just tuck all these facts away into your brain and carry on. The good news about that though is that this is a very accessible book. Both experts and lay readers should have no problem sifting through the data presented in this book.

Whether you are looking for a respite from all of the doom-and-gloom news about COVID-19 or not, this is a book that you should read to better understand just how much better things are in the world today. I highly recommend this book to all readers, not just those interested in current affairs.

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Constitutional Revolution: A Review of The Second Founding by Eric Foner

The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution by Eric Foner

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

As the United States is once again engaged in a struggle for race-consciousness and democratic renewal, historians have turned their gaze to the little known and little understood period of Reconstruction. The period from 1865-1877, roughly, birthed three new amendments to the Constitution, the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments. In this new work by the leading historian on Reconstruction, Mr. Foner examines the history behind the creation, ratification, and legal legacy of the Reconstruction amendments and makes the argument that their intent was far more expansive than anyone, particularly the justices, past and present, of the Supreme Court, have ever dared to believe.

The end of the Civil War raised a series of questions regarding the relationship between the federal government and the states, between the government and its citizens, and between white and black citizens themselves. The 13th amendment officially ended slavery in America, but Mr. Foner notes that section 2 of the amendment, which gives Congress the power to enforce the the amendment through legislation, fundamentally altered the previous federal system the country operated under. Mr. Foner notes that the Due Process clause of the 14th amendment has had long reaching consequences for Americans' civil rights, but notes how the authors of the amendment thought the Privileges and Immunities clause could be more far-reaching. And Mr. Foner notes how the 15th amendment protection of African-American mens' right to vote could have been much stronger had the politics of the time been much different. Through all of this, Mr. Foner notes the multifaceted debates that surrounded all of these amendments and how, like the story of Reconstruction as a whole, the Supreme Court's retreat from fully implementing these amendments, even working to outright nullify them at times, still lingers over the country today, like a malevolent shadow.

While this book is a relatively short read at approximately 170+ narrative pages, this is by no means an easy read. Like a good historian, Mr. Foner gets into the weeds of congressional debate, lawmaking, and jurisprudence. This makes for an incredibly complicated reading experience, especially as there are no subtitles in the chapters to help orientate the different subjects Mr. Foner covers. That, more than anything, would've been extremely helpful in following along with his arguments.

Still, this is an incredibly important work of political and legal history coming at just the right time to help us better understand the true history of such a maligned historical period as Reconstruction and how, in the country's ongoing quest to overcome our shared legacy of slavery, racism, and inequality, a better understanding of the past can help us better our circumstances in the present. While the complicated debates described in this book can be daunting, this is a work of history that should be read by all historians, legal scholars, judges, politicians, and lovers of American history.

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National Shame: A Review of An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States

An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Thomas Jefferson once called the young United States of America an "Empire of liberty," first putting into words the idea that America had a destiny to spread freedom and democracy around the world. While the hypocrisy of that idea when juxtaposed against slavery and racial segregation, what is less known and even less understood is just how fraudulent such a phrase sounds to the Native Americans who inhabited the continent before the United States was even an idea. In this critical counterpoint to the historical narrative that most Americans know from school, Dr. Dunbar-Ortiz argues that the American project was always an imperialist policy of genocide against indigenous people in North America.

Dr. Dunbar-Ortiz starts this book with an introduction that is incredibly jarring as she uses the standard definition for genocide and applies that the colonial experience Native Americans have the U.S.'s expansion westward and beyond. It is an incredibly jarring start, one that, as a proud American, I was very taken aback by. However, with each chapter, Dr. Dunbar-Ortiz tells the history of America from Native Americans' perspective and it is hard to not see where she and others are coming from. By the end of this book, I came to a more full recognition of just how shameful America's past relations with Native Americans was and, in some ways, still is. Native Americans were pushed off their ancestral lands in a number of different ways, most often by squatting settlers, genocidal militias and Army troops. Once the Indians Wars were largely won, Native Americans were forced into boarding schools where their cultural identity was nearly erased (and too many children were sexually assaulted by missionaries and others) and their reservation lands were continually shrunk. Though some recent Supreme Court cases have begun to recognize Native Americans' claims, that has not always been the case and too many tribes are not allowed to return to their sacred lands, such as the Black Hills of the Dakotas. As much as slavery and racial segregation, America's treatment of Native Americans is another original sin of ours that has yet to be fully discussed and reconciled.

This book is not an easy book to get through. Like me, many Americans may find it difficult to square Dr. Dunbar-Ortiz's use of such terms as genocide, squatting, and others with the history of what we were taught in schools about America's unique past and destined place in the world. But, for those with an open mind and heart and a deep love of country and all those who live here, this is an incredibly necessary read. We must reconcile our nations past in order to have a brighter future. I highly recommend this book to all Americans who wish to see America begin that reconciliation process.

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"The Horror": A Review of King Leopold's Ghost

King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The colonial period in Africa is little known and little understood by Americans today, and yet that history is so pivotal to the creation of international human rights organizations that it should be better known and celebrated. In this meticulous work, Mr. Hochschild tells the devastating story of the Congo Free State, ruled by a tyrant, disguised in the veneer of constitutional monarchy and humanitarianism, with tools of terror that eerily prefigures the genocidal atrocities of the 20th century.

Starting with the story of how King Leopold II of Belgium deftly maneuvered both domestic and foreign politics in order to secure a colony under his direct control, Mr. Hochschild shows how the Congo Free State was always a colony of exploitation, built on the back of brutalized African slaves. The cast of characters is incredibly diverse, with such historical monsters as Henry Morton Stanley and León Rom (the latter of whom was probably one of the inspirations for Joseph Conrad's character, Mr. Kurtz, in Heart of Darkness), and brave men who risked much, including their lives, to tell the world of the atrocities happening in the Congo. Among these heroes include such people as George Washington Williams, E.D. Morel, and Roger Casement. One voice that is missing though, which Mr. Hochschild points out repeatedly, is the voice of the Africans themselves. Too few of their testimonies are recorded for posterity from this period. However, Mr. Hochschild does a tremendous job of trying to bring in their voices whenever he can.

Oftentimes, the atrocities are hard to read about. Africans were enslaved, mutilated, and massacred for a long time and, in spite of the successes of the international protest movement at the turn of the 20th century, several brutal colonial practices continued up to Congo's independence and even beyond. And yet, the international protest movement that Morel and others led would prefigure our conceptions of international human rights in the 20th and 21st centuries. One of the great things about this book is that Mr. Hochschild doesn't sugarcoat the truth, but it does mean that younger readers may want to wait a little bit before tackling such a heavy topic.

One thing I did not like about this book is how the details of how exactly the Congo Free State was initially operated and developed were not there. At one point, it appears that Henry Morton Stanley is setting the colony up in King Leopold's name, and then the next moment all the killings begin. This may be because of my quick reading of the first chapters, but I feel like there are a few steps between "Let's set up a colony" to "Let's enslave and murder everyone" that are missing here.

For anyone interested in world history, the history of colonialism in Africa, or the history of international human rights, this is an essential read. In its explicit condemnation of colonialism, it reminds us that we should never turn our backs on the cries of suffering around the world and work to end human rights abuses wherever they may happen.

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