What do you think?
Rate this book
Begin the World Over
Begin the World Over is a fictional alternate history of how the Founders’ greatest fear—that Black and indigenous people might join forces to undo the newly formed United States—comes true.
In 1793, as revolutionaries in the West Indies take up arms, James Hemings, has little interest in joining the fight for liberté —talented and favored, he is careful to protect his relative comforts as Thomas Jefferson’s enslaved chef. But when he meets Denmark Vesey, James is immediately smitten. The formidable first mate persuades James to board his ship, on its way to the revolt in St. Domingue. There and on the mainland they join forces with a diverse cast of characters, including a gender nonconforming prophetess, a formerly enslaved jockey, and a Muskogee horse trader. The resulting adventure masterfully mixes real historical figures and events with a riotous retelling of a possible history in which James must decide whether to return to his constrained but composed former life, or join the coalition of Black revolutionaries and Muskogee resistance to fight the American slavers and settlers.
In 1793, as revolutionaries in the West Indies take up arms, James Hemings, has little interest in joining the fight for liberté —talented and favored, he is careful to protect his relative comforts as Thomas Jefferson’s enslaved chef. But when he meets Denmark Vesey, James is immediately smitten. The formidable first mate persuades James to board his ship, on its way to the revolt in St. Domingue. There and on the mainland they join forces with a diverse cast of characters, including a gender nonconforming prophetess, a formerly enslaved jockey, and a Muskogee horse trader. The resulting adventure masterfully mixes real historical figures and events with a riotous retelling of a possible history in which James must decide whether to return to his constrained but composed former life, or join the coalition of Black revolutionaries and Muskogee resistance to fight the American slavers and settlers.
287 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 23, 2022
37 people are currently reading
3175 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 67 reviews
April 18, 2022
Kung Li Sun's Begin the World Over is described as a "counterfactual" novel about the insurrection that resulted in the creation of Haiti. I am not a scholar of rebellions enacted by enslaved people throughout USA history, but I am interested in their stories, especially those that so often go untold. I am not sure if it's common to be ignorant about this particular uprising or not, but I was. Since the book is described as "counterfactual," I assumed initially to believe that the story was purely fiction. However, once I started the book, I realized just how much of it was true. The exact minute events and conversations may not be, but the people are very real. Sun tells us as much when they introduce the book, stating: "Characters are, by and large, real people, acting within the bounds of available evidence."
Knowing this, I approached the story as a historical fiction. Yet, as it went along, I still found myself fascinated and surprised by the extremely interesting characters. I eventually started googling them to figure out what parts were real and a hell of a lot of what occurred in this book was recorded throughout history. In particular, I was very excited by the fact that we meet multiple characters who transcend the bounds of gender conformity and heterosexuality. Romaine was the first character I ended up googling, when she is described as being born male but adopting the identity of a woman through inspiration and dedication to the virgin Mary. To call her a trans woman would be making assumptions about this interesting presentation that may be something more complicated and or fantastical, hence my language in the previous sentence. There is also some brief but passionate gay male action going on that I could not find evidence for in my very brief googling. It made sense nonetheless due to assumptions made historically about James Hemings' "fluid" sexuality.
These things among many other are what made this rebellion story stand out to me. Of course, LGBTQ folks have always existed, but they are often erased in these histories or at least these parts of their lives are. We also meet a great many maroons sharing space with Creek indigenous people. There is discussion about divisions among the indigenous between those like Red Eagle and Sehoy who will do anything they can to cooperate with and protect liberated slaves and those who would turn them in or worse in exchange for protection of their tribe from white slavers. This is also a real collaboration that happened throughout many revolutions and also in day to day life- maroons and indigenous people cooperating and living together on the margins of colonized and stolen land.
The story itself is exciting. I sometimes have trouble getting into period pieces and historical fiction simply because it's not my favorite type of fiction, but this book drew me in quite early. Sun manages to navigate the stories of many characters and their histories in ways that are both expansive and easy to follow. I felt as if I was along for the ride. I am keeping this vague to avoid spoilers, but I will say that, from what I gathered in my brief searches, the arc that the author chose to give James Hemings is the one that diverges most from recorded history. James Hemings met a tragic and lonely end in real life and this story gives his legacy redemption and a chance at a different timeline. I almost wish I had not looked him up, but at the same time, find the way his story was rewritten for him to be quite beautiful.
This is Kung Li Sun's first novel and I would definitely read something from them again. It was exciting, creative, engaging, and straight up fun at times despite taking place in such a torturous era full of horrific histories. It is an excellent reminder of what people can achieve together even in the most oppressive circumstances. I also really love the cover design. It combines destruction and liberation in a way that does the story justice.
This was also posted to my blog.
Knowing this, I approached the story as a historical fiction. Yet, as it went along, I still found myself fascinated and surprised by the extremely interesting characters. I eventually started googling them to figure out what parts were real and a hell of a lot of what occurred in this book was recorded throughout history. In particular, I was very excited by the fact that we meet multiple characters who transcend the bounds of gender conformity and heterosexuality. Romaine was the first character I ended up googling, when she is described as being born male but adopting the identity of a woman through inspiration and dedication to the virgin Mary. To call her a trans woman would be making assumptions about this interesting presentation that may be something more complicated and or fantastical, hence my language in the previous sentence. There is also some brief but passionate gay male action going on that I could not find evidence for in my very brief googling. It made sense nonetheless due to assumptions made historically about James Hemings' "fluid" sexuality.
These things among many other are what made this rebellion story stand out to me. Of course, LGBTQ folks have always existed, but they are often erased in these histories or at least these parts of their lives are. We also meet a great many maroons sharing space with Creek indigenous people. There is discussion about divisions among the indigenous between those like Red Eagle and Sehoy who will do anything they can to cooperate with and protect liberated slaves and those who would turn them in or worse in exchange for protection of their tribe from white slavers. This is also a real collaboration that happened throughout many revolutions and also in day to day life- maroons and indigenous people cooperating and living together on the margins of colonized and stolen land.
The story itself is exciting. I sometimes have trouble getting into period pieces and historical fiction simply because it's not my favorite type of fiction, but this book drew me in quite early. Sun manages to navigate the stories of many characters and their histories in ways that are both expansive and easy to follow. I felt as if I was along for the ride. I am keeping this vague to avoid spoilers, but I will say that, from what I gathered in my brief searches, the arc that the author chose to give James Hemings is the one that diverges most from recorded history. James Hemings met a tragic and lonely end in real life and this story gives his legacy redemption and a chance at a different timeline. I almost wish I had not looked him up, but at the same time, find the way his story was rewritten for him to be quite beautiful.
This is Kung Li Sun's first novel and I would definitely read something from them again. It was exciting, creative, engaging, and straight up fun at times despite taking place in such a torturous era full of horrific histories. It is an excellent reminder of what people can achieve together even in the most oppressive circumstances. I also really love the cover design. It combines destruction and liberation in a way that does the story justice.
This was also posted to my blog.
December 24, 2022
I literally physically experienced chills on the last few pages to this book. A story of solidarity rooted in principled love and totally beloved characters. We need stories where the revolution WINS- and this is one. How the heck did this lawyer know how to write so good??? I devoured it in three days and feel like I want to buy everyone I know a copy and feel recommitted to my liberation work. Storytelling is powerful!
September 14, 2025
Reading again for good measure (and medicine).
Wow.
I was recently listening to a podcast where Andrea Ritchie was talking about her new book, Practicing New Worlds, where she tries on the imagining of our next economic and social order. She reflects on how for the majority of her organizing life, she has looked to others to do the imagining as she co-struggles towards abolition. Her new book is her public recognition that we all have a responsibility to imagine, as difficult, uncomfortable, unfamiliar, and as unskilled we may be at it. I felt that call come to life in Kung Li’s book. What do we learn by studying how different decisions throughout history would shift our current reality? What do we learn by studying imagined futures we might not be able to grasp yet? So much. I believe this is one of the most strategic intellectual practices we can try on, and Kung Li calls us into that.
This is a story of solidarity, of struggle, of betrayal, of strategy, of spirit, of love. Plantations ablaze, struggles across imposed borders, queer revolutionaries, queer revolution.
This was a wild book to read for many reasons. Perhaps the most prominent is because of my own relationship to and with South Alabama, where much of this story is set - knowing the rivers, the species, the Federal Road, the factual history of some of these characters.
A few themes I want to pull out:
The way that Red Ege views debt, and the way we witness his clarity come into focus. First, with the way he commits to repair his debt to Mary, even though others don’t see it as his own debt to repair. We also witness his understanding of debt sharpen with his mother’s wisdom – “No debt incurs for that which cannot be bought or sold,” – as he ponders his responsibility of repair at different moments throughout the book. There is a lot to hold onto here, and I appreciated the ways he moved with debt/forgiveness/repair across and beyond linear space and time.
I also want to highlight the struggle of familial relationships in the book. There were moments where kin had to diverge because of different values and ideological views, but ultimately it was values. This is most obvious amongst Sehoy, Red Eagle, and McGillivray. It is hard to imagine the degree of this reality during the 1800s, especially amidst the Creek Wars where Maskoke were deeply split on strategy, and many were killed and many were displaced. We know this is historically true of revolutionary times. As a young person living through a new era of generationally impacting choices, I found peace in Red Eagle’s final words to his uncle. The consideration of losing people you love because of your commitment to a free world is actually something to contend with, although we hope we can bring them with us.
It also feels important to highlight the way we see the leaders discern timing of actions and identify the skills needed. There is clear leadership in this story and there is a clear diversity of skill that allows this to be a successful start to a revolution. Map making, cooking, spiritual preparation, etc etc etc. And also we have to break bread together. We are all needed, and we all have gifts to offer. And we need people to lead us.
Ok, lastly, the theme of fugitivity. How to exist in free spaces in an unfree state. Is it possible? Is it worthwhile? Is it strategic? Here we see multiple sites of fugitivity - maroons, pirates, sovereign indigenous zones - move together. I’m left wondering where the sites of fugitivity are in the present. I am lucky to know and witness some. I know there are many more. What’s the next leg of revolution? And what do we need to prepare?
Wow.
I was recently listening to a podcast where Andrea Ritchie was talking about her new book, Practicing New Worlds, where she tries on the imagining of our next economic and social order. She reflects on how for the majority of her organizing life, she has looked to others to do the imagining as she co-struggles towards abolition. Her new book is her public recognition that we all have a responsibility to imagine, as difficult, uncomfortable, unfamiliar, and as unskilled we may be at it. I felt that call come to life in Kung Li’s book. What do we learn by studying how different decisions throughout history would shift our current reality? What do we learn by studying imagined futures we might not be able to grasp yet? So much. I believe this is one of the most strategic intellectual practices we can try on, and Kung Li calls us into that.
This is a story of solidarity, of struggle, of betrayal, of strategy, of spirit, of love. Plantations ablaze, struggles across imposed borders, queer revolutionaries, queer revolution.
This was a wild book to read for many reasons. Perhaps the most prominent is because of my own relationship to and with South Alabama, where much of this story is set - knowing the rivers, the species, the Federal Road, the factual history of some of these characters.
A few themes I want to pull out:
The way that Red Ege views debt, and the way we witness his clarity come into focus. First, with the way he commits to repair his debt to Mary, even though others don’t see it as his own debt to repair. We also witness his understanding of debt sharpen with his mother’s wisdom – “No debt incurs for that which cannot be bought or sold,” – as he ponders his responsibility of repair at different moments throughout the book. There is a lot to hold onto here, and I appreciated the ways he moved with debt/forgiveness/repair across and beyond linear space and time.
I also want to highlight the struggle of familial relationships in the book. There were moments where kin had to diverge because of different values and ideological views, but ultimately it was values. This is most obvious amongst Sehoy, Red Eagle, and McGillivray. It is hard to imagine the degree of this reality during the 1800s, especially amidst the Creek Wars where Maskoke were deeply split on strategy, and many were killed and many were displaced. We know this is historically true of revolutionary times. As a young person living through a new era of generationally impacting choices, I found peace in Red Eagle’s final words to his uncle. The consideration of losing people you love because of your commitment to a free world is actually something to contend with, although we hope we can bring them with us.
It also feels important to highlight the way we see the leaders discern timing of actions and identify the skills needed. There is clear leadership in this story and there is a clear diversity of skill that allows this to be a successful start to a revolution. Map making, cooking, spiritual preparation, etc etc etc. And also we have to break bread together. We are all needed, and we all have gifts to offer. And we need people to lead us.
Ok, lastly, the theme of fugitivity. How to exist in free spaces in an unfree state. Is it possible? Is it worthwhile? Is it strategic? Here we see multiple sites of fugitivity - maroons, pirates, sovereign indigenous zones - move together. I’m left wondering where the sites of fugitivity are in the present. I am lucky to know and witness some. I know there are many more. What’s the next leg of revolution? And what do we need to prepare?
October 13, 2022
i loved this— an incredibly counterfactual novel about an alternate history where enslaved black people and indigenous people join forces and bring rebellion to the american south...blends real historical figures with invented ones to great effect, the concept of this is huge and hugely important, although it suffers from some confused writing and character underdevelopment
January 26, 2023
This book was everything I want in a book. A gay love story between a radical Chef and a revolutionary pirate, a sci-fi story/historical fiction account of the Haitian revolution spreading to the United States, a travel cooking show like Anthony Bourdain's if he was anti-colonial, a war story of run away slaves(Maroons) and different indigenous nations coming together to fight slavery and colonialism, magic realism and such a satisfying ending!
December 2, 2024
amazing, honestly. kung li sun captures so many important practices, strategies, and tactics in the characters and their stories. to name a few (not all): prayer & spirituality, security culture for the times, working with the land and the Indigenous stewards of the lands, intuition, elder & ancestral wisdom...
food/nourishment was a huge theme throughout and shown not only as a way to fuel uprisings, but a way to bring people together to share intel, AND to visualize organizing & tactical strategies in the orchestrating of perfectly timed courses and meals.
i loved all of the characters, even with some of their underdeveloped backgrounds/page presences. the gender and sexuality queerness was beautiful.
i also always appreciate the reality and seriousness of violence as a necessary part of getting free. sick of whitewashed ideas of "non-violence" being pedestalized in constant state-fueled propaganda willingly spread by the masses.
overall an energizing imagining of what could've been and, let's be real, what could still be if enough of us want it🔪
food/nourishment was a huge theme throughout and shown not only as a way to fuel uprisings, but a way to bring people together to share intel, AND to visualize organizing & tactical strategies in the orchestrating of perfectly timed courses and meals.
i loved all of the characters, even with some of their underdeveloped backgrounds/page presences. the gender and sexuality queerness was beautiful.
i also always appreciate the reality and seriousness of violence as a necessary part of getting free. sick of whitewashed ideas of "non-violence" being pedestalized in constant state-fueled propaganda willingly spread by the masses.
overall an energizing imagining of what could've been and, let's be real, what could still be if enough of us want it🔪
July 17, 2022
I loved this book! I was surprised to discover that a few of the main characters were real and many of their backstories and identities captured in this novel, such as their gender and sexuality, were representative of the real people.
This novel brings forth a strong, passionate voice revolting against slavery and native land repossession and reimagines what justice looks like. The voice of James Hemings, a formerly enslaved chef who Jefferson had trained in Paris, was a wholesome and wise central voice to this critical story, making top notch meals and the common desire to revolutionize the ultimate unifiers among communities. Kung Li Sun captured the passion for revolution and balanced that with sweet, tender moments throughout this page turning reimagining of history.
Thank you Kismet Books in Verona, Wisconsin for the advanced reader copy!
This novel brings forth a strong, passionate voice revolting against slavery and native land repossession and reimagines what justice looks like. The voice of James Hemings, a formerly enslaved chef who Jefferson had trained in Paris, was a wholesome and wise central voice to this critical story, making top notch meals and the common desire to revolutionize the ultimate unifiers among communities. Kung Li Sun captured the passion for revolution and balanced that with sweet, tender moments throughout this page turning reimagining of history.
Thank you Kismet Books in Verona, Wisconsin for the advanced reader copy!
January 10, 2023
Why yes, I would love to read more queer, indigenous, Black empowered historical fiction. This one really swept me up at the end. A brilliant wondering of alternate revolutionary history.
May 23, 2023
i just dont like war novels !! i understand the purpose but i am just not interested in the plot 🤥
March 8, 2023
[3.5 stars] A counterfactual novel that reimagines the impact of the fight for Haitian Independence as inspiring a Black and Indigenous-led revolution to topple white enslaver power in the southern U.S. I was super drawn to the premise of this book - James Hemings as a queer chef finding himself rising up against the Charleston gentry alongside a formerly enslaved young woman, a genderqueer prophetess, a gay pirate, and a transmasculine Indigenous leader - but had a hard time getting into it. I wish the beginning had moved more quickly, and I wish there had been more written from Romaine's POV (I found her character the most compelling). And when I got to the final third, I wish the action and climax had been paced more slowly, as the multi-part uprisings and their delicious violence definitely deserved spaciousness and attention. I did definitely love the speculative alternative history aspect of the early 1800's Deep South, and even though that time period is one that I rarely choose to read about, would definitely be interested in any other books that Kung Li Sun writes about that time period or others. Recommended for readers who enjoy ensemble casts and anyone who wishes Hamilton had decided to lean a bit more into its revolutionary reimagination potential.
Goodreads Challenge 2023: 8/52
Dates Read: 01/16/23-02/20/23
Goodreads Challenge 2023: 8/52
Dates Read: 01/16/23-02/20/23
September 22, 2022
didn't know what to expect from this book and i'm not usually one for historical fiction/revisionism, but this was was a total banger. Li Sun is an excellent writer and the characters were compelling, if a bit one-dimensional. anyway, subscribe to AK Press' monthly gift program to get more bangers like this one <3
February 26, 2024
Begin the World Over is a work of historical fiction that avoids the genre term, advertising itself instead as a counterfactual novel about history as it should have been. Despite that phrasing, the novel is pretty at home with most works of historical fiction I've read. It's impeccably researched and while many of the events aren't true, quite a few of them are. I've read self-professed historical fiction that took much more creative liberty than this book and didn't bother apologizing for it. That said, I have talked a lot with Historian friends about the problem of ethical historical fiction. It's easy for poorly researched or even purposely misleading historical fiction to form the basis for the popular understanding of a specific time, place, person, or culture, so I appreciate Sun's willingness to state up front that people shouldn't allow their book to do that for them.
Most of the characters of the novel are based on real historical figures. James Hemings, the very first French-trained American chef, who was enslaved by Thomas Jefferson and who - I learned yesterday - invented motherfucking macaroni and cheese, is the book's initial protagonist, accidentally joining a pirate crew and opening a restaurant in New Orleans. The pirate captain, Denmark, is another historical figure and protagonist, as is Romaine, a trans prophetess who led a Haitian slave revolt. Every character is an absolute treat, and unlike in most novels with several narrators, I was never disappointed with a shift in perspective; I was just newly excited to see what James or Romaine or Red Eagle was up to. Sun is a legitimately impressive writer, and I was often taken by surprise by the craft in a bit of prose, or the deftness of a piece of character work
The novel's plot essentially takes several real-life uprisings that all occurred in what is now the United States in the 1790s and brings their leaders together, recasting the revolutions as parts of a larger strategic effort. Sun uses this to ask how much improved things might have been had things gone this way, had a US in its infancy fallen to a concerted Black and Indigenous effort to take it down, spearheaded by queer people, but she doesn't give in to the temptation to answer the question he asks. Instead of being presented with a utopia, we're given a glimpse of a promising start to something better.
My only real issue with this novel is I wish it had an author's note at the end. I've come to really appreciate authors' notes in historical fiction as a way to get a feel for the path their research took and the reasons for decisions they made. I honestly think the lack of an author's note here is a missed opportunity to spotlight some of the truth of the uprisings and historical figures central to the novel. Maybe even to include some portraits or historical artistic renderings of the people and events. Especially as much of AK Press does deal in nonfiction, I would have appreciated a short dip into some historical details at the end. Still, the book did spur me to read up on the characters and events myself, so even without an author's note, I can't say it didn't do its job.
Most of the characters of the novel are based on real historical figures. James Hemings, the very first French-trained American chef, who was enslaved by Thomas Jefferson and who - I learned yesterday - invented motherfucking macaroni and cheese, is the book's initial protagonist, accidentally joining a pirate crew and opening a restaurant in New Orleans. The pirate captain, Denmark, is another historical figure and protagonist, as is Romaine, a trans prophetess who led a Haitian slave revolt. Every character is an absolute treat, and unlike in most novels with several narrators, I was never disappointed with a shift in perspective; I was just newly excited to see what James or Romaine or Red Eagle was up to. Sun is a legitimately impressive writer, and I was often taken by surprise by the craft in a bit of prose, or the deftness of a piece of character work
The novel's plot essentially takes several real-life uprisings that all occurred in what is now the United States in the 1790s and brings their leaders together, recasting the revolutions as parts of a larger strategic effort. Sun uses this to ask how much improved things might have been had things gone this way, had a US in its infancy fallen to a concerted Black and Indigenous effort to take it down, spearheaded by queer people, but she doesn't give in to the temptation to answer the question he asks. Instead of being presented with a utopia, we're given a glimpse of a promising start to something better.
My only real issue with this novel is I wish it had an author's note at the end. I've come to really appreciate authors' notes in historical fiction as a way to get a feel for the path their research took and the reasons for decisions they made. I honestly think the lack of an author's note here is a missed opportunity to spotlight some of the truth of the uprisings and historical figures central to the novel. Maybe even to include some portraits or historical artistic renderings of the people and events. Especially as much of AK Press does deal in nonfiction, I would have appreciated a short dip into some historical details at the end. Still, the book did spur me to read up on the characters and events myself, so even without an author's note, I can't say it didn't do its job.
June 3, 2023
this was incredible. the author brings to life real historical modes of Black and Indigenous resistance, and weaves them into a vibrant tale of a revolution that could have been.
it's fascinating to see how the characters (who are real people who lived historically) build trust, pass messages, build faith in their plans and dreams, and consider their conditions / problems when planning to run or execute whatever plan.
a lot of this book is about rousing enough collective courage & trust for people to leave what they know and put their lives on the line for their freedom. this happens at different times through ceremony, romance, vengeance, family & community leadership, kinship, faith, and LOTS of shared meals. in this area it has things to teach any movement / revolution.
this is a moving book, and a great pride month read bc of all the riotous trans & queer life it features. we need more stories like this. for our imaginations, and for our understandings of the histories & worlds we live in.
it's fascinating to see how the characters (who are real people who lived historically) build trust, pass messages, build faith in their plans and dreams, and consider their conditions / problems when planning to run or execute whatever plan.
a lot of this book is about rousing enough collective courage & trust for people to leave what they know and put their lives on the line for their freedom. this happens at different times through ceremony, romance, vengeance, family & community leadership, kinship, faith, and LOTS of shared meals. in this area it has things to teach any movement / revolution.
this is a moving book, and a great pride month read bc of all the riotous trans & queer life it features. we need more stories like this. for our imaginations, and for our understandings of the histories & worlds we live in.
July 29, 2023
Gagged when I learned some of the characters were real
August 24, 2024
4.5 rounded up - the last half of this book was a banger of a story, full of the kind of energy and improved character development that the first half lacked (I did love the cooking descriptions from the beginning, though). I found the first half to be a bit flat…the fight scenes felt a bit too unrealistic and easily resolved. I loved the storyline overall and ended up not being able to put it down!
September 1, 2022
For years I read AK Press books because I love theory, politics, and history. Over the past year or three they've begun to delve into the fiction side of publishing and for the most part they've done a bang up job. Begin the World Over is possibly the best of the bunch; it had everything I love, from strong character development (not only flawed/likable people, but also one's that I can partially recognize from my friend group) to an amazing story. I was on the edge of my seat from the first page to the last, even though I was 99% sure I knew how it would end. Alternate history is definitely not my favorite genre, but Kung Li Sun did something special here. Read it!
January 11, 2023
Really inspiring historical fiction. This is a gripping page turner of a world which could have been, could still become. One of my favorite things about historical fiction is getting a glimpse, although a hypothetical one, of the motivations and thinking and changes that (mostly or sometimes somewhat) real people go through, and Begin the World Over doesn't let you down in this regard, my only critique is I wish where appropriate there were citations and bibliography to delve deeper into the various real historical aspects.
August 24, 2022
This book is for the hungry. Any who hunger for a different world, for justice, for solidarity, and for the revolutionary potential of good food.
August 21, 2023
Low rating is not really a reflection on the book - I just feel like I wasn’t the reader for this one. I went in expected the story of James and Denmark to be at the heart, but honestly James is in about 15% of the novel and almost none of his actions are significant in any way. On top of that, I thought the alternative history angle was going to take a precipitating event - a widespread rebellion of slaves and indigenous people - and show how that impacted the timeline and how history would have diverged from what actually happened. Instead, the “rebellion” doesn’t gather any kind of steam until halfway through the novel - up to that point, the characters are just waiting around for something to happen. The novel ends with the first real success of the rebellion, but doesn’t necessarily imply that this ends slavery or even successfully spreads to the rest of Europe’s colonized lands.
All in all, I think maybe this would hit different if I knew more about the minutiae of this time in history. Several passages just felt like the author listing names in order to ground the story in reality, but I didn’t recognize most of them so it didn’t do much for me. The author also uses real historical figures as a kind of shorthand to skip over real character development. The cast of characters is so large that beyond a quick Wikipedia entry on their history, we rarely spend enough time with any character to get a real sense of who they were as a person rather than as a “historical figure.” Again, that’s not a flaw of the book, but as someone who is drawn into books by character-driven narratives, I really struggled to connect. Most of this felt like reading a textbook entry with weirdly graphic descriptions of violence.
The violence inherent in the novel was something I also struggled with. Mentioning that the rebellion on Saint Domingue included revenge rape, trying to cut the heads off the governor’s wife and child in Louisiana, and threatening to skin alive a mailman who accidentally got caught up in the rebellion in South Carolina kind of turned my stomach because these instances seemed to focus on people divorced or at least distanced from the horrors of slavery. It also triggered some dormant Catholic part of me to hear Romaine claim to do these on guidance from the Virgin Mary, the literal catholic embodiment of peace, forgiveness, and love. Yes, slaveowners did deserve to have their own violence turned back on them, but this was something I had to forcibly remind myself while reading the novel because it just felt so macabre and gory.
I think this is an important and empowering book, to return some agency to the hundreds of thousands of people of color who had their humanity stripped from them during the slave trade. I think the representation of gay, female, and gender diverse voices - so often marginalized or outright missing in American history - makes this a worthwhile read. From a purely storytelling perspective, however - plot, themes, narrative, world building, characterization, and language - this book fell pretty short for me.
All in all, I think maybe this would hit different if I knew more about the minutiae of this time in history. Several passages just felt like the author listing names in order to ground the story in reality, but I didn’t recognize most of them so it didn’t do much for me. The author also uses real historical figures as a kind of shorthand to skip over real character development. The cast of characters is so large that beyond a quick Wikipedia entry on their history, we rarely spend enough time with any character to get a real sense of who they were as a person rather than as a “historical figure.” Again, that’s not a flaw of the book, but as someone who is drawn into books by character-driven narratives, I really struggled to connect. Most of this felt like reading a textbook entry with weirdly graphic descriptions of violence.
The violence inherent in the novel was something I also struggled with. Mentioning that the rebellion on Saint Domingue included revenge rape, trying to cut the heads off the governor’s wife and child in Louisiana, and threatening to skin alive a mailman who accidentally got caught up in the rebellion in South Carolina kind of turned my stomach because these instances seemed to focus on people divorced or at least distanced from the horrors of slavery. It also triggered some dormant Catholic part of me to hear Romaine claim to do these on guidance from the Virgin Mary, the literal catholic embodiment of peace, forgiveness, and love. Yes, slaveowners did deserve to have their own violence turned back on them, but this was something I had to forcibly remind myself while reading the novel because it just felt so macabre and gory.
I think this is an important and empowering book, to return some agency to the hundreds of thousands of people of color who had their humanity stripped from them during the slave trade. I think the representation of gay, female, and gender diverse voices - so often marginalized or outright missing in American history - makes this a worthwhile read. From a purely storytelling perspective, however - plot, themes, narrative, world building, characterization, and language - this book fell pretty short for me.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 13, 2022
I thoroughly enjoyed this book -- it's a delightful mix of history and imagination, with a well chosen cast of characters and a creative framework for the story.
It is just shy of five stars for me because the shift from limited POV to a kind of imbalanced omniscient third person POV was a bit jarring. The book opens following James, a runaway the chef who gets tied up in a revolution a bit accidentally and whose cooking makes for some wonderful allegory. James is a richly written character whose thoughts, emotions, and goals are well crafted and relatable. At some point, POV starts bouncing around, but none of the other characters feel as three dimensional as James. By the end of the book, his voice is mostly lost and I think that diminishes the emotional power of the book.
But aside from a bumpy POV ride, the book is an optimistic and engaging adventure story that creates a new past -- and inspires us to imagine a new future. Highly recommend.
It is just shy of five stars for me because the shift from limited POV to a kind of imbalanced omniscient third person POV was a bit jarring. The book opens following James, a runaway the chef who gets tied up in a revolution a bit accidentally and whose cooking makes for some wonderful allegory. James is a richly written character whose thoughts, emotions, and goals are well crafted and relatable. At some point, POV starts bouncing around, but none of the other characters feel as three dimensional as James. By the end of the book, his voice is mostly lost and I think that diminishes the emotional power of the book.
But aside from a bumpy POV ride, the book is an optimistic and engaging adventure story that creates a new past -- and inspires us to imagine a new future. Highly recommend.
September 24, 2022
The story did not pull me along at all. I guess epic tales and such slow storytelling just isn't my cup of tea. Also, many references must have missed me as they would for most anyone who is not from America. And also, there were so many pages about cooking, about which I could not care less.
But I did finish it, for the same reason that I started it: to get some ideas about what could have been done differently in history to make revolutions effective. Unfortunately, in the end it didn't offer much in this respect either, apart from simplistic parallels between revolution and cooking.
But I did finish it, for the same reason that I started it: to get some ideas about what could have been done differently in history to make revolutions effective. Unfortunately, in the end it didn't offer much in this respect either, apart from simplistic parallels between revolution and cooking.
October 30, 2025
I have never said this about a book before: this would've been 5 stars if it was three times as long. Loved the premise, loved the first third or so, loved the emphasis on food and community and connection and violent uprising, but the plot driving on and on without stopping kinda lost me in the second half. But! Imagine if!
January 24, 2023
This was indeed a true 5 star adventure. The historical fiction so many of us wish was a reality. Well crafted to the very lady by line, a call to the book’s title. An inspired read for sure.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Read
February 28, 2025DNF
December 12, 2025
good food, mutual aid, and libertad. alternate histories remind us that better worlds are possible. history is not preordained and none of this was inevitable. under the right circumstances, we can shape the world any way we want, and begin the world over.
November 12, 2025
A bit too woke, not enough plot
April 8, 2024
So…I read the first quarter of this book in snatches on commutes, etc. and then the last three quarters of this book in one furious night after getting back from Niagara Falls and from St. Catherine’s in Canada, which either fits or reinforced my sense of the book’s pacing: very slow at the beginning as we accumulate characters and backstory, and then very very fast as the revolution begins.
Like The Free People’s Village, James starts as an entry point to revolution (as the uninitiated and uncertain revolutionary-by-circumstance, aka he got blackout drunk after meeting a very charismatic Denmark Vesey and snuck onto Vesey’s ship). But (maybe because he’s not white and white guilt is not at all focal in this book, thank god), he doesn’t dither in ways that get annoying and self-serving the way Maddie’s narrative in The Free People’s Village often does: He has serious concerns about his enslaved family members being sold as punishment for his escape, he has real career aspirations for himself and wants to make a name for himself as a chef, he has actual leadership skills in his ability to command a kitchen and work as a convener around that food (e.g. when he’s wheedling information about revolution out of folks like Vesey and Romaine, at first for purely gay reasons (lol Denmark)), and ultimately he chooses the path of revolution without hesitating after he’s made his choice. In any case, once he’s done being the entry point to the narrative, like a readerly warmup to the tactics of revolution, it turns into a multivocal narrative with even more interesting characters (Romaine, Mary, Red Eagle in particular, but to a lesser extent Denmark Vesey as well) with complex backstories and internal conflicts that get revealed in somehow totally different ways. (The kinds of internal conflicts they face also feel like a way of saying, you can have very different orientations towards action and your world and work very well together, e.g. Mary’s single-minded will to action against Andrew Jackson in the wake of her sister’s sale vs. Red Eagle’s struggle to inherit a (slightly gendered) matriarchal mantle his mother needs him to take on vs. Romaine’s having led and witnessed the price of failed revolution—they debate things furiously but ultimately put their egos aside and think of the lives at stake and reach consensus fast enough to keep their army agile and still manage to bring everyone with them in a way I’m realizing is a foundational aspect of revolutionary writing: you need to bring everyone with you into the future. You don’t break ranks and you don’t leave anyone behind.
In some ways, I think this is a more successful way of getting at the tactics and community of revolution, while The Free People’s Village is more about the ambivalence of trying to do good as an individual within a divided community and find a political education in the whirlpool of modern disruptions and violence, which operates at a scale that the revolutionaries in Begin the World Over cannot match (muskets and machine guns require very different tactics // cannot operate a battlefield in the same way in the slightest). The Free People’s Village gets more at why things are hard today—scale-wise, political environment-wise, and in terms of individual egos playing a significant role in how people act around each other and why—and Begin the World Over works more so in terms of what things could be possible, if chosen, if everyone is willing to face up to violence and work together and not be tied to what the world should look like after the revolution while fighting the revolution itself (I mean, other than the obvious: people cannot be property, land cannot be property, you cannot bargain with people who are beholden to those ideas, and you cannot abandon your political allies).
I’d love to look more into this author’s process of researching this book & write about this in conjunction with The Free People’s Village and Everything for Everyone (this book just cemented my need to write about these together—and talk about what it means to write an alternate history of the past, present, and future, and what you can do about narratives as such), and of course will need to reread pieces of this in the process. Overall, though: this book was thoroughly cool, if a little slow at the start, and reads like a heist novel (like if I’d actually enjoyed Six of Crows / if Six of Crows actually had a sense of mission and purpose that wasn’t tied to a full-on other series, but also more narratively experimental and interesting as well).
A few scattered notes I made while reading:
* Mai’s discussion of an economic replacement for the slave trade
* food at the heart of revolution (the Denmark x James romance as the driver of these didactic discussions of revolutionary tactics and the ways in which you can disagree fundamentally about them is interesting)
* Romaine’s experiences of faith…a willingness to read the signs from herons to people
* How to use language this way in the real world? what of a world where language is losing its trust (given machine learning and language models?)
* The value of faith and recognizing when something is truly beginning to crumble…you need to write. Write like your mind’s on fire. This was the purpose of everything in your life.
* note moments of significance in the novel and what they signify to you—in each of these characters’ narratives (the refusal that Red Eagle learns)
* Show and deception / subterfuge as a necessary part of revolution**
* But also speed and flexibility—the ability to move quickly and as one with surprise and nimbleness —> and a willingness to give up all of what you think you have to chase down something you don’t know will happen (in for a penny, in for a pound // if you have very little to carry with you, you’re less afraid of losing it)
* And that Andrew Jackson’s downfall is his hesitance to attack what he sees as his own property!!! That hesitation in the need to protect property—this is what is powerful. This is what holds him back.
* Read these novels quickly and study them after…!! As a reader you cannot hesitate and the writers need to keep it that way (**interesting: think about what pacing does to these novels conceptually)
* The necessity of violence // and how violence operates on different scales (the easier more manageable violence of Begin the World Over vs that of The Free People’s Village)…how do you break through that if not via a world collapse? (NYC Commune?)
* could do a general read / synthesis of these pieces quickly and delve into key moments / themes in each as bulleted sections
* Speed >> fast and slow work >> fast paced writing // writing with urgency vs. the slow sensorium of chemical time
Like The Free People’s Village, James starts as an entry point to revolution (as the uninitiated and uncertain revolutionary-by-circumstance, aka he got blackout drunk after meeting a very charismatic Denmark Vesey and snuck onto Vesey’s ship). But (maybe because he’s not white and white guilt is not at all focal in this book, thank god), he doesn’t dither in ways that get annoying and self-serving the way Maddie’s narrative in The Free People’s Village often does: He has serious concerns about his enslaved family members being sold as punishment for his escape, he has real career aspirations for himself and wants to make a name for himself as a chef, he has actual leadership skills in his ability to command a kitchen and work as a convener around that food (e.g. when he’s wheedling information about revolution out of folks like Vesey and Romaine, at first for purely gay reasons (lol Denmark)), and ultimately he chooses the path of revolution without hesitating after he’s made his choice. In any case, once he’s done being the entry point to the narrative, like a readerly warmup to the tactics of revolution, it turns into a multivocal narrative with even more interesting characters (Romaine, Mary, Red Eagle in particular, but to a lesser extent Denmark Vesey as well) with complex backstories and internal conflicts that get revealed in somehow totally different ways. (The kinds of internal conflicts they face also feel like a way of saying, you can have very different orientations towards action and your world and work very well together, e.g. Mary’s single-minded will to action against Andrew Jackson in the wake of her sister’s sale vs. Red Eagle’s struggle to inherit a (slightly gendered) matriarchal mantle his mother needs him to take on vs. Romaine’s having led and witnessed the price of failed revolution—they debate things furiously but ultimately put their egos aside and think of the lives at stake and reach consensus fast enough to keep their army agile and still manage to bring everyone with them in a way I’m realizing is a foundational aspect of revolutionary writing: you need to bring everyone with you into the future. You don’t break ranks and you don’t leave anyone behind.
In some ways, I think this is a more successful way of getting at the tactics and community of revolution, while The Free People’s Village is more about the ambivalence of trying to do good as an individual within a divided community and find a political education in the whirlpool of modern disruptions and violence, which operates at a scale that the revolutionaries in Begin the World Over cannot match (muskets and machine guns require very different tactics // cannot operate a battlefield in the same way in the slightest). The Free People’s Village gets more at why things are hard today—scale-wise, political environment-wise, and in terms of individual egos playing a significant role in how people act around each other and why—and Begin the World Over works more so in terms of what things could be possible, if chosen, if everyone is willing to face up to violence and work together and not be tied to what the world should look like after the revolution while fighting the revolution itself (I mean, other than the obvious: people cannot be property, land cannot be property, you cannot bargain with people who are beholden to those ideas, and you cannot abandon your political allies).
I’d love to look more into this author’s process of researching this book & write about this in conjunction with The Free People’s Village and Everything for Everyone (this book just cemented my need to write about these together—and talk about what it means to write an alternate history of the past, present, and future, and what you can do about narratives as such), and of course will need to reread pieces of this in the process. Overall, though: this book was thoroughly cool, if a little slow at the start, and reads like a heist novel (like if I’d actually enjoyed Six of Crows / if Six of Crows actually had a sense of mission and purpose that wasn’t tied to a full-on other series, but also more narratively experimental and interesting as well).
A few scattered notes I made while reading:
* Mai’s discussion of an economic replacement for the slave trade
* food at the heart of revolution (the Denmark x James romance as the driver of these didactic discussions of revolutionary tactics and the ways in which you can disagree fundamentally about them is interesting)
* Romaine’s experiences of faith…a willingness to read the signs from herons to people
* How to use language this way in the real world? what of a world where language is losing its trust (given machine learning and language models?)
* The value of faith and recognizing when something is truly beginning to crumble…you need to write. Write like your mind’s on fire. This was the purpose of everything in your life.
* note moments of significance in the novel and what they signify to you—in each of these characters’ narratives (the refusal that Red Eagle learns)
* Show and deception / subterfuge as a necessary part of revolution**
* But also speed and flexibility—the ability to move quickly and as one with surprise and nimbleness —> and a willingness to give up all of what you think you have to chase down something you don’t know will happen (in for a penny, in for a pound // if you have very little to carry with you, you’re less afraid of losing it)
* And that Andrew Jackson’s downfall is his hesitance to attack what he sees as his own property!!! That hesitation in the need to protect property—this is what is powerful. This is what holds him back.
* Read these novels quickly and study them after…!! As a reader you cannot hesitate and the writers need to keep it that way (**interesting: think about what pacing does to these novels conceptually)
* The necessity of violence // and how violence operates on different scales (the easier more manageable violence of Begin the World Over vs that of The Free People’s Village)…how do you break through that if not via a world collapse? (NYC Commune?)
* could do a general read / synthesis of these pieces quickly and delve into key moments / themes in each as bulleted sections
* Speed >> fast and slow work >> fast paced writing // writing with urgency vs. the slow sensorium of chemical time
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 17, 2024
I had not gotten beyond the back cover of Kung Li Sun’s Begin the World Over before I was stopped by a phrase the publisher used to describe the book. It was said to be a “counterfactual novel,” and, as with much else about the story, that very deliberate word choice begged for a nuanced exploration. Why choose counterfactual over, say, historical fiction or alternate history (not to mention allohistory or uchronia)? I think I understand the choice, but before I unpack the term counterfactual and explain why that may be the most important descriptor for Begin the World Over, I want to touch on a few of the many other merits of the book.
Although this is a first novel, the author’s plotting and pacing are satisfying and brisk. For that reason, my initial urge was to blaze through the book. But the author writes with such simplicity, clarity, and elegance that I often lingered over paragraphs of prose for the sheer pleasure of it. This accomplishment is all the more significant because Kung Li Sun is a lawyer (as am I). Happily, that part of legal writing training devoted to infinitely nested dependent clauses didn’t take.
Though counterfactual on certain critical elements in the story, much of the narrative is firmly grounded in history; every named character but one (Mary) is taken from historical records, and many of the events of the story are consistent with what is known about them. The delight therein is that, as the plot unfolds and new characters are introduced, Google becomes a rich appendix. Google is by no means necessary to understand and enjoy the book, but the pleasure of its detours and amplifications meant that I spent more time Googling than in the novel’s text. I wound up with a far deeper knowledge of late 18th-century history than could have been delivered in ponderous interior explanatory text.
An example of such rewards is the story’s central character, James Hemings (brother of Sally Hemings). Hemings serves an “adhesive” function. He connects characters that otherwise might stand alone and so exposes the phenomenal diversity and depth of the slave revolution that began in Haiti.
Hemings the historical figure was enslaved to Thomas Jefferson at age 9 and grew to become an accomplished French-trained chef while still bound in servitude. I found not only a wealth of online material devoted to James, but his history has also received book-length attention from several authors. My side trip into his life was itself almost book-length.
A collateral benefit of having a chef as a central character proved to be a glutton’s worth of food description and history threaded throughout the narrative. As with so many other facets of the book, that too was stuffed with scrumptious detail. More than once, I found myself hungry after reading a passage.
Now on to the word that I fell for: counterfactual. A popular sense of the word “history” is that there exists a single, eternal, and immutable truth about past events. In this imagined universe, historians uncover such “objective” truth and then simply tell what happened. There is a school of historiography closely aligned with that view—objectivist history—and it derives from the musings of, among others, Ayn Rand. Amazingly, that association has not yet condemned it. An ongoing debate pits objectivists against a variety of “relativist” schools. One counterpoint to the objectivist approach to history arises from…you guessed it…counterfactual history.
The counterfactual label is sometimes applied to fiction, as with Phillip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Tower. But counterfactual narratives are also used by historians as tools to illuminate the types of choices that were available at the time significant events occurred. A principal proponent of this method is British historian Niall Ferguson. He uses counterfactual scenarios to illustrate his objections to determinist and objectivist versions of history and to make the case for the importance of contingency. Historians such as Ferguson try to show that a few key changes could have led to a significantly different world today.
Begin the World Over fits that mold precisely. It imagines that the slave rebellion begun in the West Indies by Black and Indigenous insurrectionists spilled over into the United States and redefined democracy in that age.
In some senses, it is the goal of objectivist history to relate what went “right.” U.S. history is often offered as a tale of what went right, but right from the perspective of wealthy, white, CIS, male, plantation-owning slaveholders. By that narrative, the United States emerged from the minor difficulties of slave revolts in a just-right, city-on-a-hill condition.
That dismissive view continues to be reinforced and narrowed further still, as we can see from the headlines. All manner of interests, from legislatures to Moms for Liberty, are crowbarring complex and nuanced historical narratives into a “truth” that suits their political interests. By those lights, slavery was a benevolent institution, leaving its beneficiaries with marketable skills rather than scars from the whip. And gender identity and sexuality are now (and, according to such advocates, have always been) binary absolutes, only black and white, with no room for a full spectrum. Those falling elsewhere on the spectrum stay in the dark back passages of history, out of view and beyond consideration.
Such tightly constrained narratives leave huge blanks in the histories that result, such that powerful possibilities and important personalities go unseen. Truths that still bear on us get lost, and we are all the poorer for it.
Begin the World Over was built to remedy some of that. James Hemings lived a queer life, right under the nose of Jefferson…and was not only tolerated but celebrated. The gender-atypical Prophetess, far from being relegated to some backwater, led an important matriarchal Indigenous society wherein truths were uncovered and decisions were made collaboratively. The power inherent in that collaboration was what enabled the spread of revolution. And it still threatens the political heirs of slaveholders, as we see from the energy devoted to minimizing so many organizations trying to effect change.
Reading Begin the World Over was like attending a semester-long seminar on using history to energize our collective sense of possibilities. In that sense, the book is an excellent fit and a leading light in the Emergent Strategy Series for which its publisher, AK Press, has become known.
Although this is a first novel, the author’s plotting and pacing are satisfying and brisk. For that reason, my initial urge was to blaze through the book. But the author writes with such simplicity, clarity, and elegance that I often lingered over paragraphs of prose for the sheer pleasure of it. This accomplishment is all the more significant because Kung Li Sun is a lawyer (as am I). Happily, that part of legal writing training devoted to infinitely nested dependent clauses didn’t take.
Though counterfactual on certain critical elements in the story, much of the narrative is firmly grounded in history; every named character but one (Mary) is taken from historical records, and many of the events of the story are consistent with what is known about them. The delight therein is that, as the plot unfolds and new characters are introduced, Google becomes a rich appendix. Google is by no means necessary to understand and enjoy the book, but the pleasure of its detours and amplifications meant that I spent more time Googling than in the novel’s text. I wound up with a far deeper knowledge of late 18th-century history than could have been delivered in ponderous interior explanatory text.
An example of such rewards is the story’s central character, James Hemings (brother of Sally Hemings). Hemings serves an “adhesive” function. He connects characters that otherwise might stand alone and so exposes the phenomenal diversity and depth of the slave revolution that began in Haiti.
Hemings the historical figure was enslaved to Thomas Jefferson at age 9 and grew to become an accomplished French-trained chef while still bound in servitude. I found not only a wealth of online material devoted to James, but his history has also received book-length attention from several authors. My side trip into his life was itself almost book-length.
A collateral benefit of having a chef as a central character proved to be a glutton’s worth of food description and history threaded throughout the narrative. As with so many other facets of the book, that too was stuffed with scrumptious detail. More than once, I found myself hungry after reading a passage.
Now on to the word that I fell for: counterfactual. A popular sense of the word “history” is that there exists a single, eternal, and immutable truth about past events. In this imagined universe, historians uncover such “objective” truth and then simply tell what happened. There is a school of historiography closely aligned with that view—objectivist history—and it derives from the musings of, among others, Ayn Rand. Amazingly, that association has not yet condemned it. An ongoing debate pits objectivists against a variety of “relativist” schools. One counterpoint to the objectivist approach to history arises from…you guessed it…counterfactual history.
The counterfactual label is sometimes applied to fiction, as with Phillip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Tower. But counterfactual narratives are also used by historians as tools to illuminate the types of choices that were available at the time significant events occurred. A principal proponent of this method is British historian Niall Ferguson. He uses counterfactual scenarios to illustrate his objections to determinist and objectivist versions of history and to make the case for the importance of contingency. Historians such as Ferguson try to show that a few key changes could have led to a significantly different world today.
Begin the World Over fits that mold precisely. It imagines that the slave rebellion begun in the West Indies by Black and Indigenous insurrectionists spilled over into the United States and redefined democracy in that age.
In some senses, it is the goal of objectivist history to relate what went “right.” U.S. history is often offered as a tale of what went right, but right from the perspective of wealthy, white, CIS, male, plantation-owning slaveholders. By that narrative, the United States emerged from the minor difficulties of slave revolts in a just-right, city-on-a-hill condition.
That dismissive view continues to be reinforced and narrowed further still, as we can see from the headlines. All manner of interests, from legislatures to Moms for Liberty, are crowbarring complex and nuanced historical narratives into a “truth” that suits their political interests. By those lights, slavery was a benevolent institution, leaving its beneficiaries with marketable skills rather than scars from the whip. And gender identity and sexuality are now (and, according to such advocates, have always been) binary absolutes, only black and white, with no room for a full spectrum. Those falling elsewhere on the spectrum stay in the dark back passages of history, out of view and beyond consideration.
Such tightly constrained narratives leave huge blanks in the histories that result, such that powerful possibilities and important personalities go unseen. Truths that still bear on us get lost, and we are all the poorer for it.
Begin the World Over was built to remedy some of that. James Hemings lived a queer life, right under the nose of Jefferson…and was not only tolerated but celebrated. The gender-atypical Prophetess, far from being relegated to some backwater, led an important matriarchal Indigenous society wherein truths were uncovered and decisions were made collaboratively. The power inherent in that collaboration was what enabled the spread of revolution. And it still threatens the political heirs of slaveholders, as we see from the energy devoted to minimizing so many organizations trying to effect change.
Reading Begin the World Over was like attending a semester-long seminar on using history to energize our collective sense of possibilities. In that sense, the book is an excellent fit and a leading light in the Emergent Strategy Series for which its publisher, AK Press, has become known.
August 30, 2024
I can’t understate how much I love this book, I would eat up another book like this although I would understand if Kung Li Sun didn’t write another one since it’s so specific. Let me elaborate
Kung Li Sun said in an interview that the premise for this book started with a friendly argument with his partner over what point in history did America stop being ‘redeemable’. He thought it was later at first but after a lot of research into earlier time periods decided that any time after the series of slave rebellions in the late 18th century would be effectively too late for the US to change course.
The book came out of imagining if these revolts had been successful on the US mainland and how that could come about. So it’s difficult to imagine when/where their second book would be based. Plus counterfactual fiction seems very labor intensive!
I’ve never read a book quite like it and I was completely enamored by the prose, the characters, and the general revolutionary spirit it invokes. 🔥🔥🔥🐦⬛🐦⬛🐦⬛ I really hope more people read this one
Kung Li Sun said in an interview that the premise for this book started with a friendly argument with his partner over what point in history did America stop being ‘redeemable’. He thought it was later at first but after a lot of research into earlier time periods decided that any time after the series of slave rebellions in the late 18th century would be effectively too late for the US to change course.
The book came out of imagining if these revolts had been successful on the US mainland and how that could come about. So it’s difficult to imagine when/where their second book would be based. Plus counterfactual fiction seems very labor intensive!
I’ve never read a book quite like it and I was completely enamored by the prose, the characters, and the general revolutionary spirit it invokes. 🔥🔥🔥🐦⬛🐦⬛🐦⬛ I really hope more people read this one
December 11, 2022
Magnificent. A *must* read. We need this history and this instruction for our future. And so beautiful. The language. The relationships. The loving and precise description of the land. And the FOOD. Damn. What I am still thinking about is.the depth in all the characters and how they are with each other. The risks of love they took. Even the hard relationships felt loving. Damn. So deep and so good. It takes many forms of love to get us free. What an incredible and soul strengthening book. Thank you #KungLiSun #BeginTheWorldOver is immense and beautiful #BIPOCbooks #liberation #RacialJusticeReads #lgbtq #QTPOC #QueerBooks #LGBTQbooks #HistoricalFiction #SpeculativeFiction #BIPOCAuthors
Displaying 1 - 30 of 67 reviews