Reviews - Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy

247 reviews for:

Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy

Blood in the Water won the Pulitzer Prize in History, and deservingly so. It's an excellent, vital, and thoroughly disturbing account of the infamous Attica Prison Uprising of 1971—when over a thousand prisoners seized control of the prison in order to protest long years of mistreatment at the hands of prison guards—and its aftermath. Heather Ann Thompson uses the uprising and its brutal suppression as a lens through which to examine issues of racism, mass incarceration, and state brutality (both inflicted by law enforcement and by dissembling politicians) in twentieth-century America. There are perhaps points where Thompson's partisanship is a little too in evidence, but this is still an essential read, and a compelling indictment of the state of New York.

readers_block's review

3.0

This book was just entiiiirely too long.

I'd say the first fourth of the book is devoted to what happened at Attica, while the remainder of the book drags through 30 years of court cases, introduces absolutely every person involved, from the most important to the most peripheral, to the most peripheral's family members. It seems Thompson's intention was to write the most comprehensive account of every single thing that happened in the wake of Attica, and while admirable (and certainly achieved), it's not quite what I was looking for. I ended up skimming a good deal of the end.

kenzienoellereads's review

DID NOT FINISH: 20%

Not only is this book 800 pages, it’s a dense 800 pages and I’m just not interested enough to read this entire book 🫠

cwooley0324's review against another edition

5.0

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

klew's review

5.0

Fascinating and deeply sad history of this event.

mattnixon's review

3.0

(3.5 stars) This is is difficult one to rate. It is exhaustively researched and the level of detail Thompson reconstructs is remarkable. However, I found it to be a fairly exhausting read. There's very little gesture towards crafting a compelling narrative. Dramatic, consequential moments are plowed over in the same just-the-facts reporting style as quotidian court motions. Furthermore, a book that purports to be about the 1971 uprising's "legacy" could have benefited greatly from Thompson taking a wider lens to the story, providing deeper context for what was going on in the country at the time (I mean, how can a book about Attica and it's legacy not even mention Dog Day Afternoon until the last 3-4 pages where it's tossed off in a list of other pieces of American culture that mention Attica?).

I'm certain that this is the definitive history of the 1971 Attica prison uprising, while equally certain that a far more captivating and resonant version of this story could have been told. 5-stars for research, 3-stars for readability.