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4.34 AVERAGE
4.34 AVERAGE
reflective
I loved how this book managed giving a life to these mysterious women while also acknowledging the lack of information about them. Contrasting the authors research and the women's stories shows the reality of historical research. I felt the art could be a bit muddy and hard to follow at times but I loved the style and felt it was a great pick for this book.
This is really two stories in one: the story of women-led slave revolts and the story of Dr. Hall trying to find the information regarding them. As I read the words and processed the images, I was broken by both the untold number of tragic losses of life and lives destroyed by the trans-Atlantic slave trade as well as the frustration of Dr. Hall's research being repeatedly thwarted by white capitalist concerns. Dr. Hall was doing this work for her dissertation in the 1990s and I would hope that such an endeavor would have different results now, but I am not confident that it would.
I didn’t plan to get through this so quickly but once I started I couldn’t put it down. Anger inducing this book is just heartbreaking and awe inspiring. I went back and forth between having tears in my eyes and wanting to scream in anger. A must read.
This book pulls no punches in the best way. The librarian in me is entranced by her journey in conducting research into these revolts, how to find records around the world in the courts, historical societies, libraries, museums: slave ship logs, letters traveling across the oceans hundreds of years before. I am also repulsed by the injustice of the institutional and racist barriers she faces in finding sources to name the women who lead these revolts. I am moved by the way Hall tells the story of slavery that haunts us to this day. "Like invisible forces have shaped everything around you . . . but you've lost the words to describe them. This is what it means to live in the wake of slavery." (pg. 2)
Dr. Rebecca Hall wants to know more about women’s roles in slave revolts in the trans-Atlantic slave trade and in early American colonial history, because she still feels echoes of the treatment of Blacks then in the treatment Blacks receive now. But as she goes through the record, she finds that those who were making the records either erased or diminished the roles that women had in these revolts, in addition to people now wanting to pretend that these atrocious things didn’t happen. Looking at what little is there, Dr. Hall still pieces together a possible history of what may have happened and how these women could be they leaders of these revolts. This is a memoir of her search for these records and her stories of what likely happened.
This was excellent. It is both revealing of the atrocities of the slave-trade, but also the various ways that events or people have been erased or diminished from the record. We can’t learn from history if it’s not written down and we can’t study it. The stark black & white illustrations help emphasize the seriousness of the subject matter.
This was excellent. It is both revealing of the atrocities of the slave-trade, but also the various ways that events or people have been erased or diminished from the record. We can’t learn from history if it’s not written down and we can’t study it. The stark black & white illustrations help emphasize the seriousness of the subject matter.
Thank you to the publisher for sending me a finished copy
This book really made me laugh at the fact I took a history class every year in grade school and never learned about any of these revolts. In fact, I didn’t even know there were this many revolts, and these are just a few of the women-lead ones.
This book was so eye opening and heart breaking. I feel like this is the kind of thing that kids should be reading about and discussing in a classroom. This kind of stuff matters so much, especially with the major topics of the world today.
I recommend reading and picking this up!
This book really made me laugh at the fact I took a history class every year in grade school and never learned about any of these revolts. In fact, I didn’t even know there were this many revolts, and these are just a few of the women-lead ones.
This book was so eye opening and heart breaking. I feel like this is the kind of thing that kids should be reading about and discussing in a classroom. This kind of stuff matters so much, especially with the major topics of the world today.
I recommend reading and picking this up!
Wow, this was an amazing book! I had cautiously suggested it to my book club group. I say cautiously because I didn't necessarily know a ton about it (I had just seen it mentioned in passing on some email probably) and I hate feeling responsible for whether or not a book is liked by others in book groups. Well, regardless of what others think (but I don't see how they won't find it powerful), I think that this is such an important entry into the graphic novel world that I think it is definitely going to become a classic text probably likened to Maus, Persepolis, March, They Called Us Enemy.
Written by a historian in a memoir-based way, this provides a lot of insight into not only the history that is shared, but the work of historians in doing research and starting to form understanding. It helps shed light on how to make sense of the evidence that is found and how to handle the lack of evidence that exists because it has been erased in order to shape the historical narrative in other ways. The storytelling also allows for history to be directly connected to our present and the future. Wake has several meanings, like the wake of boats, we have the ripple effects of history affecting us. I had also thought about waking in terms of waking up, but the book also shares another meaning I hadn't thought about, which is a funeral wake and how those serve to honor the dead. Our relationship is two-ways, though. We have the past helping us in many ways (we inherit their resilience and not just their trauma), but we can also help defend the dead, as well. These types of ideas are woven into the book so beautifully not only with words, but also with the images such as the arm from past reaching down to her in the present at the start of the book to inspire her to do research and then later reaching up for her help in the present as she's doing research.
I could go on more since this is a really deep read, and I'm sure I will think up more as I reflect and revisit it. In other words, this book offers so much, and I'm so grateful to have read it!
Written by a historian in a memoir-based way, this provides a lot of insight into not only the history that is shared, but the work of historians in doing research and starting to form understanding. It helps shed light on how to make sense of the evidence that is found and how to handle the lack of evidence that exists because it has been erased in order to shape the historical narrative in other ways. The storytelling also allows for history to be directly connected to our present and the future. Wake has several meanings, like the wake of boats, we have the ripple effects of history affecting us. I had also thought about waking in terms of waking up, but the book also shares another meaning I hadn't thought about, which is a funeral wake and how those serve to honor the dead. Our relationship is two-ways, though. We have the past helping us in many ways (we inherit their resilience and not just their trauma), but we can also help defend the dead, as well. These types of ideas are woven into the book so beautifully not only with words, but also with the images such as the arm from past reaching down to her in the present at the start of the book to inspire her to do research and then later reaching up for her help in the present as she's doing research.
I could go on more since this is a really deep read, and I'm sure I will think up more as I reflect and revisit it. In other words, this book offers so much, and I'm so grateful to have read it!
Fascinating account of research process and the findings...such injustice and sadness.