Book Description
David Brion Davis has long been recognized as the leading authority on slavery in the Western World. His books have won every major history award--including the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award--and he has been universally praised for his prodigious research, his brilliant analytical skill, and his rich and powerful prose. Now, in Inhuman Bondage, Davis sums up a lifetime of insight in what Stanley L. Engerman calls "a monumental and magisterial book, the essential work on New World slavery for several decades to come." Davis begins with the dramatic Amistad case, which vividly highlights the international character of the Atlantic slave trade and the roles of the American judiciary, the presidency, the media, and of both black and white abolitionists. The heart of the book looks at slavery in the American South, describing black slaveholding planters, the rise of the Cotton Kingdom, the daily life of ordinary slaves, the highly destructive internal, long-distance slave trade, the sexual exploitation of slaves, the emergence of an African-American culture, and much more. But though centered on the United States, the book offers a global perspective spanning four continents. It is the only study of American slavery that reaches back to ancient foundations (discussing the classical and biblical justifications for chattel bondage) and also traces the long evolution of anti-black racism (as in the writings of David Hume and Immanuel Kant, among many others). Equally important, it combines the subjects of slavery and abolitionism as very few books do, and it illuminates the meaning of nineteenth-century slave conspiracies and revolts, with a detailed comparison with 3 major revolts in the British Caribbean. It connects the actual life of slaves with the crucial place of slavery in American politics and stresses that slavery was integral to America's success as a nation--not a marginal enterprise. A definitive history by a writer deeply immersed in the subject, Inhuman Bondage offers a compelling narrative that links together the profits of slavery, the pain of the enslaved, and the legacy of racism. It is the ultimate portrait of the dark side of the American dream. Yet it offers an inspiring example as well--the story of how abolitionists, barely a fringe group in the 1770s, successfully fought, in the space of a hundred years, to defeat one of human history's greatest evils.
Customer Reviews:
WHAT YOU NEVER LEARNED IN SCHOOL IN THE SOUTH.......2007-05-09
If you are over 60 and did not self-educate on slavery,you need to read this book. Believe me, slavery was a barely mentioned topic in elementary school through college. I know this is true for Blacks in the South and probably is true for other races as well.
This book is a must read for those non-academics who want to have a better understanding of slavery in America and the Americas. The sexual exploitation and psychological impact of slavery is generally known. This book, however, allows one to get the full picture of slavery from a global, economic and political perspective. There is nothing better for a painful subject like this than finding a reliable (well documented) and easy to read source by a respected author.
A great gift for your friends, no matter what race!
Dr. Davis' Opus.......2007-03-24
Readers of "Inhuman Bondage" have the privilege of entering the mind of one of the greatest living scholars of American slavery. In what truly may be his opus, Dr. David Brion Davis writes not simply a book, but composes a symphony. Like all great composers, Davis blends seemingly disparate notes into beautiful harmony.
Wide-ranging, even sprawling in coverage, Davis tells the epic story of the inhuman bondage of human enslavement. Laying the foundation with a captivating and accurate portrayal of the history and philosophy of ancient slavery, the author then moves into the modern era of slavery, first in the "New World" then in America more specifically.
"Inhuman Bondage" masterfully weaves together these larger socio-political realities with the very specific psychological realities of groups (such as the Amistad) and individuals. The clear message resonates: even inhuman treatment cannot dehumanize the human soul. In their rebellion (sometimes overt, other times, by necessity, covert and even internal), enslaved African Americans displayed their full humanity.
For a brilliantly written, in-depth, comprehensive, captivating narrative of new world slavery, look no further than "Inhuman Bondage."
Reviewer: Robert W. Kellemen, Ph.D., is the author of Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction, Soul Physicians: A Theology of Soul Care And Spiritual Direction, and Spiritual Friends: A Methodology of Soul Care And Spiritual Direction.
Great Research, Bulky Read.......2006-08-12
In under 350 pages, David Brion Davis presents a wealth of information for those exploring the history of slavery for the first time or for readers seeking additional information to supplement past books and articles.
Unfortunately, it reads like a choppy college lecture, with the flow of material marred oftentimes by the circular exploration of material. A topic may be introduced, then discussed in depth later and then reintroduced for concluding remarks many pages later.
Davis utilizes numerous resources from contemporary historians and it is appreciated that he introduces the author and the work to the reader while quoting from the material.
Inhuman Bondage is an important work in the growing number of books covering the sordid past that has been "conveniently" ignored or flippantly tossed aside in past historical writings.
By coming to terms with the past and acknowledging the damage it has done is the only way the words from Davis and others will truly have full meaning.
Read and Enjoy.......2006-06-12
This is an altogether splendid book. It is skillfully written such that it is difficult to put down; the notes are voluminous, the maps helpful, the range of information brought together and organized successfully impressive, the opinions of the author clearly expressed, and acknowledgement and credit to other historians generous. Despite this, one does wonder for whom the book was written, surely not the hypothetical general reader. Much more information than the lawyerly standard of what everyone knows is frequently called for. To give just one example, on pp. 265-66, a free black is shown worrying about the effects on him of the Fugitive Slave Law. One drops immediately to how Anthony Burns was hauled through the streets of Boston on his way to Virginia. Is one to infer that Burns was a free black erroneously seized or an escaped slave? And although Davis details how important the religious motivation was in abolitionist thought, nowhere was there any explanation of how this Biblically based thinking, which at this time was largely literal, coped with or was able to get around the clear Biblical acceptance of slavery. And one could wish, particularly in view of their extent and comprehension of various aspects of the subject, that the citations in the notes had been compiled into a bibliography. Nevertheless, I would recommend to anyone who is at all interested in slavery, the Civil War, racism, and a host of associated topics, that they do themselves a favour and read Inhuman Bondage.
Interesting.......2006-04-29
This book contributes to recent studies on slavery in Brazil and the French west indies, a wide study ot Slavery in the new world, explainings its origins, terrors, history and final liberations and conflicts. One wonders however how much the subjects needs a companion on Slavery in the Old World, and why there is no discussion of how pre-European enslavement of Africans by Arabs led to the formation of slave empires in Zanzibar and west africa that fueled the European slave trade. Imainge if these scholars dared to prick the bubble and reveal the fact that Slavery did not originate among Europeans and tha tin fact a study must be done on the rise and fall of slavery in the old world.
Seth J. Frantzman
Book Description
Rough Crossings turns on a single huge question: if you were black in America at the start of the Revolutionary War, whom would you want to win? In response to a declaration by the last governor of Virginia that any rebel-owned slave who escaped and served the King would be emancipated, tens of thousands of slaves -- Americans who clung to the sentimental notion of British freedom -- escaped from farms, plantations and cities to try to reach the British camp. This mass movement lasted as long as the war did, and a military strategy originally designed to break the plantations of the American South had unleashed one of the great exoduses in American history.
With powerfully vivid storytelling, Schama details the odyssey of the escaped blacks through the fires of war and the terror of potential recapture at the war's end, into inhospitable Nova Scotia, where thousands who had served the Crown were betrayed and, in a little-known hegira of the slave epic, sent across the broad, stormy ocean to Sierra Leone.
Customer Reviews:
Simply Brilliant.......2007-08-25
The story of Granville Sharp is a fascinating insight into how English common law operates and how with diligent study campaigners can use it to alter the nations history. Sharp proved that it had never been legal for one human to own another in England by pointing to a precedent where visiting Russian serfs had been set free in the 16th century. He argued successfully that it didn't matter what foreign laws said, even those in the colonies, as England was a free country. It was an incredible step towards the eventual abolition of slavery.
Wealthy corporations and colonists were not only hell bent on destroying those freedoms once outside of English law, they also wanted to destroy them in England. The West India lobby were massively influential in parliament, boosted by purchasing many seats in rotten boroughs. Many ordinary people feared their influence, as if they could establish slavery in England it would mean that the state would hold powers that could make many other citizens lives miserable. In many ways it was similar to the battle fought between the northern and southern states about the legality of slavery. However, Schama shows how in America, Britain's policy of freeing slaves to fight against the rebels brought the pro and anti-slavery factions together. I couldn't help feeling that unlike Granville Sharp's campaign there was little honour in freeing slaves for tactical reasons and by doing so they possibly set back the cause of abolitionists in America and lost the southern states who would have been more likely to remain loyal.
Slaves and the American Revolution.......2007-08-23
Enlightening TRUE story of the part slaves played in the American Revolution.
This part of history is not taught in American schools.
Interesting to hear the British side to the Revolution.
Well written and fascinating for those interested in another point of view.
The American Revolution and Some Unpleasant Facts.......2007-03-31
"Rough Crossings" is a rare and quite extraordinary book. It offers the reader an insight to a previously near hidden part of American history. It is, simply, a revelation.
American history lauds the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the subsequent revolutionary war as a turning point in world history. This is true. But how many people would understand that the new country, ostensibly based on freedom, was also a slave pariah state especially when compared with Great Britain? I suspect that very few Americans are aware of the facts.
As part of its war strategy, the British offered freedom to any American slave who could cross the lines. Tens of thousands of slaves took up the offer. To them, American freedom meant nothing. It was a revolution for the whites. It failed to address slavery. Indeed, many of the signatories to the Declaration of Independence were themselves slave owners. They were by their words and deeds nothing short of hypocrites.
Simon Schama's book, although somewhat meandering at times, has seemingly unearthed something new to the reader of American history. Not only does he outline the fact that slaves fled their American owners but that many ultimately settled in Nova Scotia. Several years later, the British even tried to establish a utopian new society in Sierra Leone where, briefly, black women could vote. We know that this dream failed but its protagonists were men of great humanity.
It is true that history is often written by winners. The great shame here is that these winners have avoided certain unpleasant facts that spoil an otherwise good story.
a history with an agenda.......2007-03-27
Simon Schama is a historian of all things British with strong points of view. I'm not sure what to make of this book because it almost seems like it was written to a poke a decidedly British finger into American eyes over the events of the revolutionary war.
Schama somehow wants to turn the opportunistic decision of the British authorities to free some slaves during the revolutionary war into a moral act and some sort of revolution. Problem is, it doesn't work very well.
The British had an empire full of slaves. They didn't free any slaves on moral or philosophical grounds. They emancipated the slaves of those in rebellion as a punishment to stamp out the revolution. The other problem is that most of the areas with high concentrations of slaves were sideshows to the revolutionary war. There were no great slave emancipations in New York or Boston or any of the other places were the fighting of the revolution occured.
Schama's most utterly despicable suggestion is to say that the slave emancipations became a key issue in the war and increased support for it. While it was true that the issue increased support for the war in places like the Carolinas and Georgia, those states were hardly the birthplace of the revolution. In making his claim, he insults the people in Boston, New York and Philidephia who were not slave owners and who were the firm supporters of the revolution from day one.
Schama is also an apologist for the postwar behavior of the British. The promises they made after a few years turned into a project that sent the freed slaves back to Africa (Sierra Leone) where they became a local elite to oversee and staff British rule in the area. As in Liberia, an educated ex-slave elite from America showed that they could misrule areas of Africa as well as an european could.
Schama's "goal" in the book seems to be to attack the American Revolution as somehow being about the preservation of Slavery and to morally rehabilitate the British soldiers in North America. In trying to accomplish this, he crosses the line. He misrepresents history and presents a selective case. Nobody can deny the role of slavery in American History from the revolution onward. But trying to reduce events to British heroes and evil Americans serves no good purpose and makes for a rotten history.
Dorment History.......2007-03-21
Although I have studied American History, I never read or heard about this part of our history. Although I have studied about slavery in America and its outcome, I never learned about the role the British played in the freeing of American slaves.
Book Description
An anthology of the best work of an always compelling, often controversial, and absolutely essential philosopher of the modern American Experience.
Cornel West is one of the nation's premier public intellectuals and one of the great prophetic voices of our era. Whether he is writing a scholarly book or an article for Newsweek, whether he is speaking of Emerson, Gramsci, or Marvin Gaye, his work radiates a passion that reflects the rich traditions he draws on and weaves together--Baptist preaching, American transcendentalism, jazz, radical politics. This anthology reveals the dazzling range of West's work, from his explorations of "Prophetic Pragmatism" to his philosophizing on hip-hop. The Cornel West Reader traces the development of West's extraordinary career as academic, public intellectual, and activist. In his essays, articles, books, and interviews, West emerges as America's social conscience, urging attention to complicated issues of racial and economic justice, sexuality and gender, history and politics. This collection represents the best work of an always compelling, often controversial, and absolutely essential philosopher of the modern American experience.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent!.......2007-04-05
I truly believe that Cornel West is one of the preeminent socio-political thinkers of our time. Mr. West has the ability to engage his readers without patronizing them and to encourage thoughtful dialogue without lecturing. Anyone who lives in this country would benefit from reading Mr. West; not only social liberals.
Cornal West Reader.......2006-07-03
Interesting and informative, West gives a new perspective on the Black identity in the post era. One has to be well versed in philosophy, religion, and sociological theory to derive the full essence of West's writings. West is truly an intellectual, one driven by commitment, conviction, and love for the Black community. He is truly an asset to the academic community.
west is a genius........2006-04-07
if you wish to understand, buy this book. west is a genius and his essays, poetry and interviews are a must for anyone wishing to participate in the practice of diversity. dr. west is, in my mind, the most gifted intellectual in america today - i have learned so many things from the man and his writings. he stretches my imagination and pushes me to a greater appreciation for the pursuit of understanding. i hope you feel as deeply indebted to the man after reading this tome.
To be Human, Modern, and America mean...?.......2006-03-14
This book is a tour de force, a virtual Kamikazee attack, a guerilla assault on the lazy or indifferent American progressive intellect.
Self-described "Chekhovian Christian," Public Philosopher, Cultural and Literary Critique, Christian Minister, Democratic Socialist, Radical Democrat, and Princeton Professor, Cornel West uses this book to extend his existential journey into better understanding (and as a partial response to), what he sees as the deep and unnecessary misery and suffering seen in the richest culture in the world. He does this by exploring the intellectual and existential resources needed to continue to feed our courage for the fight over the long-haul towards achieving real democracy.
Much of his quest is directed at answering three basic questions: What does it mean in a radically contingent and fragile world to be: human, modern, and American?
West answer those questions in the following way:
To be human means: enduring with dignity and honesty the existential incongruities and sufferings of life, including the inevitability of death -- and still being able to maintain the courage to continue the battle for a separate identity, freedom and equality.
To be modern is to: have the courage to use one's intelligence to first see and then engage in a conscious and constructive process of questioning and challenging the prevailing authorities, powers and hierarchies of the society. It means not giving in to the easy certainties of ideologies and false prophecies; and being ever conscious of the modalities of self-making and the self-creating possibilities of those who suffer.
To be American means to: be consciously engaged in a fragile experiment in which democratic dialogue sits precariously at the center of all self-making and self-creating projects -- projects that with sufficient energy, self-reliance, boldness and restlessness, can open up vast possibilities for those truly committed to democratic principles. It is to have unrestrained hope for a future that can transcend any troubled past; yet it also means living side-by-side with pervasive mendacity, cruel contradictions, and stage-managed hypocrisy. To be American is to raise (but leave unanswered) the most frightening of democratic questions: What does the public interest have to do with the most vulnerable and disadvantaged in our society?
And this is just for starters.
In explaining how he came to this mature intellectual and existential perspective, West chronicles his intellectual and spiritual development, and here there are many surprises. One cannot safely tuck West into any old box with the familiar labels: Christian, Black, Marxist, Public Intellectual, etc., for he is not only careful but has come to his development though hard work, insight and deeply felt human awareness. Calling himself a Chekhovian Christian is no accident any more than calling himself a Democratic Socialist, or a Radical Democrat, is. These things are not only what he embraces but are also who he is. But, whether intentional or not, they also serve to "distance" him from the normal categories these labels typically apply to.
For instance, a Chekhovian Christian cannot be confused with those who use the Christian label as a "get-out-hell free card," and as a way to immunize themselves against the "sins of others." Being a Chekhovian Christian is refusing to be imprisoned and walled-in by intentionally inflicted misery. It is to wake up each day with a new strategy for survival.
Being a "Democratic socialist;" again is not just a knee-jerk ideological label but is the result of a status carefully cultivated and carved out by West after traveling a difficult and precarious intellectual path to a clearing somewhere in the middle of a vast Marxist intellectual dessert. His Marxism is in fact as much a reinterpretation of Marx's on ethical teachings, as it is traditional Marxism. The areas upon which West's Marxism ideas are based, are so obscure and profound that most everyday card-carrying Marxists have never heard of them.
And of course, his designation of being a Radical Democrat, is arrived at by simply transposing the label of the pre-Reconstruction Radical Republicans, to today's under-Radicalized Democrats, which not only are not radical, but are card-carrying "Lite Republicans."
All of what I have reviewed so far gets one up to about page 11, and already I feel like I could pass a Phd orals in Philosophy, Sociology, Political Science, Social Theory, and Literary Criticism.
There are not enough stars in the universe to evaluate and properly judge this book.
Amen.
poor.......2005-08-04
I must say that Cornel West is more suited to acting in the Matrix or singing on his rap album than he his as a 'scholar' or university professor. President Summers was right to justly criticize Prof. West, but of course in the Jesse Jackson-era of America (jump on situations to shill money out of companies, institutions, and individuals in the name of combating 'racism' but really just to line your own pockets...for an example, look at how Jesse and his sons burgled millions out of Anheuser-Busch), Harvard quickly appointed a diversity advisor and earmarked 50 million dollars u.s. for "diversity." A sad reflection of the sorry state of our times.
Book Description
As the birthplace of the Black Panthers and a nationwide tax revolt, California embodied a crucial motif of the postwar United States: the rise of suburbs and the decline of cities, a process in which black and white histories inextricably joined. American Babylon tells this story through Oakland and its nearby suburbs, tracing both the history of civil rights and black power politics as well as the history of suburbanization and home-owner politics. Robert Self shows that racial inequities in both New Deal and Great Society liberalism precipitated local struggles over land, jobs, taxes, and race within postwar metropolitan development. Black power and the tax revolt evolved together, in tension.
American Babylon demonstrates that the history of civil rights and black liberation politics in California did not follow a southern model, but represented a long-term struggle for economic rights that began during the World War II years and continued through the rise of the Black Panthers in the late 1960s. This struggle yielded a wide-ranging and profound critique of postwar metropolitan development and its foundation of class and racial segregation. Self traces the roots of the 1978 tax revolt to the 1940s, when home owners, real estate brokers, and the federal government used racial segregation and industrial property taxes to forge a middle-class lifestyle centered on property ownership.
Using the East Bay as a starting point, Robert Self gives us a richly detailed, engaging narrative that uniquely integrates the most important racial liberation struggles and class politics of postwar America.
Customer Reviews:
Beating Cultural Studies At Its Own Game And Laughing All The Way Up The Ivory Tower With Meticulous History.......2006-03-14
In American Babylon, Robert Self attempts to synthesize consistently isolated renderings of urban, suburban, white black, economic and sociocultural histories in postwar metropolitan development. He seeks to join the histories of "modernist city planning" with "politics and social struggle (9)." In doing so, he centers his study around three primary transitions, each roughly beginning in the New Deal era and reaching completion around the advent of Johnson's Great Society. First, the remaking the white labor movement into what he terms "conservative populism." Second, the remaking of progressive black labor and urban activism into black militarism, nationalism, and Maoism. Finally, the remaking of liberal state aid from infrastructure development to human development, from direct financial subsidy for low-income whites to mobilization against pathology for low-income blacks.
The study concludes with a clash between the liberal state and suburban prosperity, newly estranged by the racialized nature of poverty.
Key to the suburban backlash of the seventies is a political disposition that formed much earlier in the late forties called "conservative populism." Self defines "conservative populism" as a postwar coalition of white blue collar workers, skilled workers, and small business interests that were pro-union, pro-private property, pro private-rights, anti-tax and anti-big-business. He defines "industrial garden" as a sort of ecosystem of commercial, industrial, and residential infrastructure in close proximity that delivers abundance and utopian living. Upon the failure of the inner city industrial garden to deliver utopian prosperity, suburbs became the actualized vision of the garden city and the staging grounds for an evacuation of prosperity.
Self portrays 1960s urban spaces as a conflict between business elites who wish to mechanize and deindustrialize infrastructure toward the end of capital accumulation, and blacks who want infrastructure investment in neighborhoods. Sometimes I found myself asking if Self was too adherent to municipal boundaries in drawing the border between city and suburb. It seems to me that large parts of American cities became and remained suburban-like in the postwar era. To use my own city as an example, there are places where Minneapolis and its suburbs seem to be very much of the same yoke. I wonder to what degree this is the case with Oakland?
There are times when the text seemed aggressive in reducing the city playing field to a contest between business infrastructure and poor blacks when a significant number of prosperous white residents remained in the city. I wonder if "post-municipalism" would be a useful younger sibling to "post-nationalism" in conceptualizing urban spaces. It might be rhetorically useful if "suburb" was reduced to an adjective in a study like this.
American Babylon hits its stride as it explores and lucidly articulates the reasons behind the conservative backlash and the death of the welfare state. While there is a tremendous body of scholarship that presents cultural explanations for the conservative backlash, it is rare that one finds an economic explanation, especially one that centers prosperity rather than exploitation and false consciousness (a la Thomas Frank) as its driving phenomenon. Self takes the same statistics that others (like George Lipsitz) have used to document the structural invention of black poverty and animates them as a call to action for white tax activists.
In affirming that both disempowerment and empowerment can be the precursors of fervent activism, Self avoids reinscribing social action as an exotic and racialized mystique of nature. Undisturbed by the proscribed boundaries of most scholarship, such mystique holds that liberal activism is essentially black, essentially urban, and essentially anti-capital or that conservative activism is essentially white, essentially rural, and essentially theological. Self disturbs and hybridizes this binary by locating the most demonstrably effective social action within suburbs.
Self also uses the suburbs to disrupt what he sees as an inadequate north/south binary in Afro-American history. It is not just business that opposes the welfare state for being anti-market or whites that oppose it out of racism, as one might gather from prevailing readings of the southern movement. Suburban whites had a vested economic interest in the elimination of civil rights gains and their adjunct, the liberal welfare state. Self also advocates retelling the civil rights movement as a national black confrontation with the exclusionary policies of the New Deal.
In perhaps his most radical departure from existing scholarship, Self talks about political economy without talking about liberal capital or economic determinism. He does not see lopsided urban development as the problem or manifest destiny of a free market, nor does he see policy as a reliable proscription on the lives of people. For Self, capital success is always prefixed by organized social action. The invisible hand is neither anonymous nor autonomous and Self is on a mission to name names.
Yet American Babylon is not without shortcomings. The introduction seems to be seeping with rich and critical contradictions. But the text-and perhaps it is just an artifact of the massive amount of information that is represented-the prose engages most of its terms with a very declarative nonchalance. A writer of similar style would be Nell Irvin Painter. Self's prose has a disarming factuality that marginalizes the ambiguity and contested meaning which seems central in cultural history. For all of its insights, it is difficult to read American Babylon as a cultural history because it is so linear. Because it does not raise problematics or invoke dialectic to resolve unclear and confounding juxtapositions, its engagement with its data is more encyclopedic than exegetical.
Ironically, while the Self does not talk about hegemony, intersectional theory, Foucault, Marx, modernity, or subjectivity, his work offers a framework for dissent that could not be built within the cultural studies lexicon.
rigorous and accessible.......2004-02-24
I read American Babylon after hearing about it on the radio, and came away impressed with the author's ability to make a remarkably complex process - the interplay of surburban development, urban decline, racial politics, and civil rights - accessible to an amateur such as myself. The book lays out a persuasive explanation of why things are they way they are in Oakland, and by (my) extension in many urban areas around the country, including my own hometown of Brooklyn. In doing so it seems to me to be the best sort of historical analysis: rigorous, remarkably detailed, and carefully documented, but useful to the public at large. Highly recommended.
Brilliant history that should be read by political activists.......2004-02-14
Robert Self's "American Babylon: Race and the Struggle for Postwar Oakland" deserves the attention of grassroots political activists as much as academics. It is a brilliant analysis of the post-World War Two business strategy for Oakland, California and the boom (and boomerang to Oakland) in housing and jobs elsewhere in Alameda County that resulted. Self shows how the decline of Oakland was the other side of the coin in the creation of new communities in the open spaces nearby. He lays out the class and race contexts of the suburbanization process and shows the consequences for and responses by the labor movement and African Americans to the changes that were wrought. "American Babylon" thus provides, for example, an interesting account of the Black Panther Party. Finally, using this region in northern California as a case study, the book examines the origins of the anti-property tax movement, when the suburbs regime went sour. Since California is still embroiled over the same issues this book addresses -- taxes, urban revitalization, de-industrialization, racial equality, and the political and environmental impacts of suburban growth -- Robert Self's "American Babylon" could not be more timely.
Medium-sized Cities in the times of Urban Renewal.......2004-02-10
Robert Self's book should interest readers interested in understanding the aftermath of urban renewal and development in US cities and the politics of race and class in the post-WWII to 1975 period. Self's work makes a contribution to studies of urban poltiics and the histories of cities and of the Civil Rights era by pointing to what has often been ignored or left invisible: that the so-called problems of people living in cities are often directly related to the overdevelopment of their surrounding suburbs (the noose), and that the problems of people of color in this country are directly related to the privileges of white people, structurally and historically. Thus, Self's book shows intimately and concretely how one might explore the dynamics of structural, institutionalized racism, in the post-Civil Rights era, when we all thought that the problem of blatant individualized racism had been solved.
In addition, the book will be useful for those of us living and working or traveling through the Bay Area: It adds another part of the story, and links the decline of Oakland with the rise of Silicon Valley, and with shifting terrains of race and class politics. It also provides important historical perspective on the forces that started the long trajectory that we now live, the decisions that sowed the seeds for the so-called ghettos, but also for the gentrification and displacement that threatens to displace our communities today.
If You Want to Understand American Cities, Read This Book.......2004-02-08
Oakland is frequently in the news. Our school board passes a resolution asserting the language rights of African-Americans, and the country explodes in controversy. Our citizens elect a celebrity mayor, and the Wall Street Journal speculates on the reasons. None of these events are understandable without understanding Oakland's history, and Robert Self has done a terrific job of capturing its contours. He lays waste to the common myth that the Civil Rights movement was exclusively a Southern phenomenon, and reports in fascinating detail on Oakland's own Civil Rights movement. Although he reports on its most famous organization, the Black Panthers, he also describes in detail the tenacity and success of other organizations, like the Oakland Black Caucus and the East Bay Democratic Club, which produced changes in the employment and electoral rights of American-Americans.
People who want to change cities should read this book.
An Oakland College Professor
Book Description
This entirely new edition of a famous classic has glorious new photographs—many never before seen—as well as a revised and expanded text that deepens our understanding of the vital role played by African American men and women on our early frontiers.Inspired by a conversation that William Loren Katz had with Langston Hughes, The Black West presents long-neglected stories of daring pioneers such as Nat Love, a.k.a. Deadwood Dick, Mary Fields, a.k.a. Stagecoach Mary, Cranford Goldsby, a.k.a. Cherokee Bill—and a host of other intrepid men and women who marched into the wilderness alongside Chief Osceola, Billy the Kid, and Geronimo.Featuring captivating narratives and photographs (many from the author’s world-famous collection), The Black West enriches and deepens our stirring frontier saga. From slave runaways during the colonial era, to the journeys of Lewis and Clark, to the charge at San Juan Hill, Katz vividly recounts the crucial contributions African Americans made during scores of frontier encounters. With its stirring pictures and vivid eyewitness accounts, The Black West is an exhilarating treasure trove.
Customer Reviews:
The Black West:: A Documentary & Pictoral History of the African American Role in the Westward Expansion of the US.......2007-01-03
This book is great and very informative. It tells how the West was won with the help of African-Americans, the things they had to endure during slavery and after freedom and how they establish productive communities.
Excellent!.......2006-02-04
Just a collection of informative vignettes detailing the Brothers and Sisters contributions to the creation of the Old West. Yet another piece of the historical African puzzle that everyone (but especially Blacks) need to become aware of.
How the West was really won........2006-01-04
THE BLACK WEST is a revised edition of an older book by William Loren Katz. He gives us a definitive history, not only of the Black people who helped settle the West, but also of the machinations of the United States to steal the land from the indigenous people. He includes the brawl with Santa Ana of Mexico regarding Texas as well as the struggle to take California from the Mexicans and the Indians. Katz lets us know that although Blacks were prominent in the settling of the West, they were not welcome additions. Many territories that later became states, passed "black laws" to restrict the entry of Blacks into the territories and to regulate their behavior once they were there. Two such laws were keeping them from voting and preventing them from attending the local schools.
On the plus side, Katz gives the glittering history of the Black cowboys who herded the cattle, tamed the ponies and found gold. He even covers the lawbreakers who rustled cattle and gave Billy the Kid a run for his money in terms of bad behavior. Also there were those Blacks who were not willing to quietly accept the discrimination that they had left the states to avoid. Many of these individuals left a legacy of protest. Two women were told in a bar in Seattle, "We don't serve niggers here." They tore that place up. Then there was the sheriff who falsely arrested a Black Buffalo Soldier in Texas. Not only did his fellow soldiers protest, they ripped open the jail and took their comrade with them.
The heartbreaking side was those Blacks who worked hard and long to buy their freedom. Once they had the money and gave it their owner, their owner would accept the money and then continue to keep them in bondage. Also, when Blacks discovered gold, irate gangs of Whites who wished to steal from them frequently ran them off the claim.
This was an excellent book and in my opinion should be required reading for every school child in America. Katz does not sugar coat history as we've come so used to seeing in regular history books. He tells the good along with the bad. He makes the West come alive with his tales of individual courage as well as covering the ugly racism that has colored this country's history.
Reviewed by Alice Holman
of The RAWSISTAZ(tm) Reviewers
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The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr.: Volume VI: Advocate of the Social Gospel, September 1948-March 1963 (Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr)
Martin Luther King Jr.
Manufacturer: University of California Press
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The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr.: Volume V: Threshold of a New Decade, January 1959-December 1960 (Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr)
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The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr.: Volume IV: Symbol of the Movement, January 1957-December 1958 (Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr)
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From Civil Rights to Human Rights: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Struggle for Economic Justice (Politics and Culture in Modern America)
ASIN: 0520248740 |
Book Description
Dedicated to documenting the life of America's best-known advocate for peace and justice, The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr. breaks the chronology of its series to present King's never-before-published sermon file. In 1997 Mrs. Coretta Scott King granted the King Papers Project permission to examine papers kept in boxes in the basement of the Kings' home. The most significant finding was a battered cardboard box that held more than two hundred folders containing documents King used to prepare his celebrated sermons. This private collection that King kept in his study sheds considerable light on the theology and preaching preparation of one of the most noted orators of the modern era.
These illuminating papers reveal that King's concern about poverty, human rights, and social justice was clearly present in his earliest handwritten sermons, which conveyed a message of faith, hope, and love for the dispossessed. His enduring message can be charted through his years as a seminary student, as pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, as a leader of the Montgomery bus boycott, and, ultimately, as an internationally renowned proponent of human rights who saw himself mainly as a preacher and "advocate of the social gospel." Ten of the original and unedited sermons King submitted for publication in the 1963 book Strength to Love and audio versions of King's most famous sermons are the culmination of this groundbreaking work.
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- A definitive reference cataloging both key immigrants and key migration patterns of different ethnic groups in the American West
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Encyclopedia of Immigragion and Migration in the American West
Gordon Morris Bakken
Manufacturer: Sage Publications
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Book Description
To read some sample entries, or to view the Readers Guide click on "Sample Chapters/Additional Materials" in the left column under "About This Book"
Immigration from foreign countries was a small part of the peopling of the American West but an important aspect in building western infrastructure, cities, and neighborhoods. The
Encyclopedia of Immigration and Migration in the American West provides much more than ethnic groups crossing the plains, landing at ports, or crossing borders; this two-volume work makes the history of the American West an important part of the American experience. Through sweeping entries, focused biographies, community histories, economic enterprise analysis, and demographic studies, this
Encyclopedia presents the tapestry of the West and its population during various periods of migration. The two volumes examine the settling of the West and include coverage of movements of American Indians, African Americans, and the often-forgotten role of women in the West’s development.
Key Features
- Represents many of the American Indian tribes and bands that constitute our native heritage in an attempt to reintegrate the significance of their migrations with those of later arrivals
- Examines how African Americans and countless other ethnic groups moved west for new opportunities to better their lives Looks at specific economic opportunities such as mineral exploration and the development of instant cities
- Provides specific entries on immigration law to give readers a sense of how immigration and migration have been involved in the public sphere
- Includes biographies of certain individuals who represent the ordinary, as well as extraordinary, efforts it took to populate the region
Key Themes
- American Indians
- Biographies
- Cities and Towns
- Economic Change and War
- Ethnic and Racial Groups
- Immigration Laws and Policies
- Libraries
- Natural Resources Events and Laws
- The Way West
The Encyclopedia of Immigration and Migration in the American West brings new insight on this region, stimulates research ideas, and invites scholars to raise new questions. It is a must-have reference for any academic library.
Customer Reviews:
A definitive reference cataloging both key immigrants and key migration patterns of different ethnic groups in the American West.......2006-05-22
The powerful 2-volume ENCYCLOPEDIA OF IMMIGRATION AND MIGRATION IN THE AMERICAN WEST is a winner: it will appeal both to high school and college library holdings in offering a definitive reference cataloging both key immigrants and key migration patterns of different ethnic groups in the American West. From entries on Chinese early immigrants to Japanese internment, discussions are sometimes several pages in length and conclude with bibliographic material for further reading. Contributors work for historical societies, museums, and universities and provide both authority and clarity.
Diane C. Donovan, Editor
California Bookwatch
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- A new beginning
- A Promethean Study of Race
- DuBois' Ideas Are Still Revalent in Contemporary America
- An Honest Book
- A "publishing event," not a book
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The Future of the Race
Henry Louis Jr Gates , and
Cornel West
Manufacturer: Vintage
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Binding: Paperback
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Race Matters
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America Behind the Color Line: Dialogues with African Americans
ASIN: 0679763783
Release Date: 1997-01-14 |
Amazon.com
In a ground-breaking collaboration, and taking the great W.E.B. Du Bois as their model, two of our foremost African-American intellectual address the dreams, fears, aspirations, and responsibilities of the black community--especially the black elite--on the eve of the twenty-first century.
Book Description
Almost one-hundred years ago, W.E.B. Du Bois proposed the notion of the "talented tenth," an African American elite that would serve as leaders and models for the larger black community. In this unprecedented collaboration, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Cornel West--two of Du Bois's most prominent intellectual descendants--reassess that relationship and its implications for the future of black Americans. If the 1990s are the best of times for the heirs of the Talented Tenth, they are unquestionably worse for the growing black underclass. As they examine the origins of this widening gulf and propose solutions for it, Gates and West combine memoir and biography, social analysis and cultural survey into a book that is incisive and compassionate, cautionary and deeply stirring.
"Today's most public African American intellectual voices...West and Gates have made a valuable contribution."--Julian Bond, Philadelphia Inquirer
"Brilliant...a social, cultural and political blueprint...that attempts to illumine the future path for blacks and American democracy."--New York Daily News
"Henry Louis Gates., Jr., and Cornel West are among the most renowned American intellectuals of our time."--New York Times Book Review
Customer Reviews:
A new beginning.......2006-12-28
I have said it before but for give me, I am a West Reader. This was the first West/Gates piece I read when I was in high school. It started my love for social science learning. The book not only is a piece of great insight on DuBois' "The Talented Tenth and Guidging Hundreth" but follows up on the topic with more indepth information on leadership in the African American race. Reading it once will leave you stuck, in order to really get a real of what the words mean you must read it over and over and study it to see what DuBois was saying years ago and how West and Gates assists him in showing the need for leadership in the African American race.
A Promethean Study of Race.......2003-02-18
In two visionary essays on the modern validity of W.E.B. Du Bois' "The Talented Tenth," Professors Gates and West have collaborated on a book that will enlighten anyone interested in race relations in America for years to come. To summarize "The Future of the Race" does not do it justice. Suffice it to say that the scholarship of these "three" learned men elevates the topic of race to higher ground. If you are looking for an easy read, or easy answers to racial issues, this book is not for you. On the other hand, if you dare to examine your own feelings about racism, I can't think of a better way to begin than by reading this book. I disagree with the reviewer from Chapel Hill who described the book as the "patter' of "public intellectuals." It's too easy to dismiss scholarly works as a product of academia, but thanks to intellectual giants like Du Bois, the essays of Gates and West have been made possible. Thank you, professors.
DuBois' Ideas Are Still Revalent in Contemporary America.......2002-12-07
This book picks apart the ideas of the most influential black scholar of the 20th century, W. E. B. DuBois. Gates and West talk of about the situation in black America and how black Americans should go about changing the poverty stricken race through DuBois' idea of the talented tenth. The Talented Tenth is the idea that the top 10% of a race will help save the rest of the race. West and Gates show how this idea can be a solution to many problems in the black community but they also talk of the problems that occur within the talented tenth. In this landmark publication, West and Gates, the top black modern scholars, come together to create a powerful book that lays out the truth for blacks in America.
An Honest Book.......2000-04-06
I've always enjoyed reading and listening to Cornel West, his ideas and observations are honest, regardless of public reaction. Maybe I enjoyed the book because I didn't compare the authors to Du Bois, I took them for who they are, modern day intellectuals. I found even the preface intriguing. There's a powerful observation in the preface that has been sitting heavily on my heart, "Being a leader does not necessarily mean being loved; loving ones community means daring to risk estrangement and alienation from that very community..." This is something we deal with on a daily basis in the black community, we're afraid to do the right thing because we're preoccupied with "keeping it real." Like I said, I appreciate the honesty from both authors and I would suggest this book to anyone interested in the present state of Black America. (But don't solely look to them to nurse the ills that plague our community, just meditate on their observations, the answers come when we put our heads together). Thanks.
A "publishing event," not a book.......1999-12-25
The essays here are fairly good, although anyone familiar with the authors will have heard a lot of the patter before. And the piece by W.E.B. Du Bois--why is that in here? The implicit comparison that Gates and West make of themselves and Dr. Du Bois is absurd. One difference between these men and Du Bois is clear: he never published fluff. Again and again, Du Bois gave us original, groundbreaking scholarship. It has been many years since either of these brilliant gentlemen has offered anything of the kind. But that's the fate of "public intellectuals," apparently--they become more and more public, and less and less intellectual. There is not much here.
Book Description
Soul by Soul tells the story of slavery in antebellum America by moving away from the cotton plantations and into the slave market itself, the heart of the domestic slave trade. Taking us inside the New Orleans slave market, the largest in the nation, where 100,000 men, women, and children were packaged, priced, and sold, Walter Johnson transforms the statistics of this chilling trade into the human drama of traders, buyers, and slaves, negotiating sales that would alter the life of each. What emerges is not only the brutal economics of trading but the vast and surprising interdependencies among the actors involved.
Using recently discovered court records, slaveholders' letters, nineteenth-century narratives of former slaves, and the financial documentation of the trade itself, Johnson reveals the tenuous shifts of power that occurred in the market's slave coffles and showrooms. Traders packaged their slaves by "feeding them up," dressing them well, and oiling their bodies, but they ultimately relied on the slaves to play their part as valuable commodities. Slave buyers stripped the slaves and questioned their pasts, seeking more honest answers than they could get from the traders. In turn, these examinations provided information that the slaves could utilize, sometimes even shaping a sale to their own advantage.
Johnson depicts the subtle interrelation of capitalism, paternalism, class consciousness, racism, and resistance in the slave market, to help us understand the centrality of the "peculiar institution" in the lives of slaves and slaveholders alike. His pioneering history is in no small measure the story of antebellum slavery.
Customer Reviews:
In the Image of God . . . but Treated Like Chattel.......2007-01-21
Johnson has done a splendid job of collating primary resources focused specifically on aspects surrounding the degrading slave auctions. He adds to his woven-together quotes a theme that focuses upon how Whites viewed themselves and each other in light of how well they managed their slaves. Much like a modern banker today might think or say, "I'm a success because I made a great commodity trade," so went the thinking of the slave owner.
The strength of Johnson's research reaches its apex in his focused, first-hand narratives exposes the despicable and hypocritical ways Whites treated blacks.
Johnson details how enslaved African Americans survived in these deplorable conditions. Highlighting how their faith in God, in particular how their identification with Christ's suffering, buoyed them up and gave them hope, not only to survive, but to thrive, would have strengthened an already strong work.
"Soul by Soul" is a very important read about a profound topic. It is not easy reading, if by "easy reading" one means a "happy story." It is hard reading--reading about the hard realities of life, but nonetheless, vital reading.
Reviewer: Bob Kellemen, Ph.D., is the author of Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction, Soul Physicians, and Spiritual Friends.
Slavery upclose.......2004-09-20
In response to Tabsaw's "brilliant" book review, I would offer a more balanced perspective. Yes, the slave narratives provide interesting reading, but what evidence is there that these are historically accurrate? In fact, a quick review of how the WPA collected these narratives should give an clue as to their reliability. Most were done by whites looking to support their perception of slavery in the 1930's. The people interviewed were elderly and their stories written down by their white interviewers. Gee...no chance for embellishment or mistakes in that process!! And Tabsaw just assumes that the white recorders were able to keep their bias out of the narratives as they transcribed them!! Hey..show me a single interviewer who is able to do that!!
Johnson's book, on the other hand, is an excellent work of scholarship. He does cite his sources (that is what those numbers mean at the end of sentenses or paragraphs, genius!!), and had Tabsaw taken the time to look in the section called "Notes", he would have discovered that Johnson is relying upon a wide range of primary and secondary sources to tell his tale. The picture he paints is one of horror and dehumanization. Slaves were treated like animals with little regard given to their well-being. Johnson takes the reader inside the slave market where the smells, sounds and conditions of slavery cannot be ignored. It is a compelling and disturbing read.
In a larger sense, Johnson's work is also a commentary on Southern life as a whole during the 1800's. The enslavement of fellow humans required a new and different social structure. The patriarchial society that ensued brought with it profound implications for relations with women, property rights and behavior. Johnson makes it plain that the slave culture came to dominate Southern life.
I recommend this work highly!! For anyone interested in what the process of slavery was like, this is the place to start. Once finished with the book (which I doubt Tabsaw actually read cover to cover because of the simple-mindness of his review), one will have a clear picture indeed of what life was like for slaves awaiting their purchase and the interactions that occurred with the white owners. The slave narratives are interesting reading, but background knowledge is necessary for an informed arguement. Johnson's book provides the needed background and helps put those narratives in context. READ THIS BOOK and see what life was like in an antibellum slave market.
Disappointing Read.......2004-06-03
Slavery in our country's history was grievously wrong, wrong, wrong...but this book was dry, dry, dry. It left out very basic details and was bogged down in the author's repetitive, plodding musings. My mind would drift trying to get through one paragraph (and the paragraphs are quite wordy.) I wanted to soak up this book and its information. Unfortunately, it was just too dull and overwrought, and I came away knowing merely a bit more about the New Orleans slave market than I did going in.
Well written.......2004-04-06
This is a well-written book on an interesting subject. The author keeps the subject moving by the way he has the book organized. It follows in the path by which a slave went from one plantation to the slave market in New Orleans to a new plantation in the Lower South. I enjoyed reading the narrative.
very informative and specific.......2002-01-04
this book was assigned to me as a summer reading book for my advanced placement american history course... after reading the first chapter, i was automatically interested. i wouldn't exactly say i couldn't put the book down, but having to read it was more like an interesting leisure activity instead of a boring read. johnson's use of citing people who reappear throughout the book was very useful because it was more obvious that the horrors of the slave market were true statements from real slaves instead of a general statement without a citation. i strongly recommend this book to people of all ages!!!
Book Description
In the decades following World War II, cities across the United States saw an influx of African American families into otherwise homogeneously white areas. This racial transformation of urban neighborhoods led many whites to migrate to the suburbs, producing the phenomenon commonly known as white flight. In Block by Block, Amanda I. Seligman draws on the surprisingly understudied West Side communities of Chicago to shed new light on this story of postwar urban America.
Seligman's study reveals that the responses of white West Siders to racial changes occurring in their neighborhoods were both multifaceted and extensive. She shows that, despite rehabilitation efforts, deterioration in these areas began long before the color of their inhabitants changed from white to black. And ultimately, the riots that erupted on Chicago's West Side and across the country in the mid-1960s stemmed not only from the tribulations specific to blacks in urban centers but also from the legacy of accumulated neglect after decades of white occupancy. Seligman's careful and evenhanded account will be essential to understanding that the "flight" of whites to the suburbs was the eventual result of a series of responses to transformations in Chicago's physical and social landscape, occurring one block at a time.
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