Breve storia degli afroamericani

Very Short Introductions #729

by Jonathan Scott Holloway

Che cosa comporta essere un cittadino americano? Significa vivere in una terra di libertà e opportunità? La storia afroamericana illumina i paradossi fondamentali della società statunitense. Questo libro si apre nel 1619, quando arrivarono a Jamestown i primi schiavi africani, e segue il filo della lotta per la libertà attraverso la schiavitù e la sua abolizione, la vergogna della segregazione e i primi movimenti popolari neri; e poi il Ku Klux Klan, l’ostinato coraggio di Rosa Parks, la marcia del 28 agosto 1963, i modi in cui le controversie sui diritti civili hanno continuato a esplodere fino all’attuale movimento Black Lives Matter.
La storia degli Stati Uniti può essere letta anche come la storia di una lunga e non ancora conclusa battaglia affinché diventino realtà gli ideali di uguaglianza enunciati nella Dichiarazione d’indipendenza.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History

160 pages, Paperback

Published March 17, 2022

Reviews

[Giulia Drago · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lettura molto interessante, l'autore è molto bravo a invogliare la curiosità del lettore per invitarlo ad approfondire i temi trattati.

[Ann Herrold · Rating 4 out of 5]

Obviously short but for what it is it does a great job summarizing the last 400 years plus of African American History.

[Josiah Richardson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Here's another example of a very short introduction where the title gives the impression of something the pages inside don't deliver. This was a good book as far as it goes (there were some comments made towards the beginning of the book that were quite loaded), but the focus on the history of African Americans is not synonymous either the history of slavery. It is true that you can't tel the story of one without telling the story of the other, but African Americans have accomplished more, and made bigger impacts, in this country than a simple retelling of the history of American chattel slavery (which should have been the title of this book). The vast majority of this book focused on the antebellum period, which was a formidable time, no doubt. But that is not where the story ends.

[Macho · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't envy the task of summarizing 5 centuries of history over a vast geographic area down into a hundred pages or two. Holloway does it expertly, and holds the balance between covering topics that are representative of the overall trends of organization and thought, while also touching on individuals' stories and retaining a readable narrative. I even encountered topics that I had never known before (e.g. the "second middle passage") as well as context I hadn't know about more well-known events (e.g. the failed attempted merger of the Black Panther Party & SNCC). I guess I've got to read more titles from Oxford University Press.

[Kianna Hendricks · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 ⭐️ rounded up. A lot of good baseline information. Would be more useful for people with no knowledge of African American history, but there are a lot of interesting facts I haven’t heard of previously.

[Gi V · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant. Required reading.

[Nikki · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a short read about African American history. If you’re not from the US and want to get a handle on the complexities of this history, this book would be a good start.

[Ali Cat · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book provides a much-needed augmentation and correction to the exclusionary versions of history that are usually taught or recounted. Thank you, I hope to become better informed by reading this. And it's sure to be interesting as well.