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thelaurasaurus's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
An interesting and well researched non-fiction book about the lives of Black people living in Tudor England.
Each chapter focuses on one person, and starts with a little fictional extract told from their perspective and based on evidence available. I found this a useful tool in bringing life to their stories.
It’s interesting to see the different sources used. Birth, baptism and death records, inventories and wills are the more obvious ones for personal information. This is then woven through with wider statistics and facts, to build up an idea of what life might have looked like for each person.
My favourite surprise fact of all - Tudors named their cows.
dawnlizreads's review
Think I just don't have the concentration for this at the moment, so may go by back to it.
snowblu3's review against another edition
4.0
This took me months to get through because the narrator’s soothing voice put me to sleep. I probably would have gotten through an ebook faster. Really good book that goes into detail on a topic you don’t typically cover in a history class.
audenspence's review against another edition
3.0
DNF. This book wasn’t quite what I was looking for. I think for people less familiar with 16th century European history, this would be a good text, because a lot of what I read was contextual information. It’s hard to write a book based on historical records that consist mostly of vital records and statistics. The subject itself is necessary and worth writing about. Black people existed in Tudor England and 16th century Europe. To state otherwise, as the author proves, is simply untrue and overlooks the nuances of life at the time.
colorfulleo92's review against another edition
3.0
While the topic of the book where very interesting and fascinating the information didn't flow in a pleasant and nice way I'm used in other historic normal. It felt to be told very fact by fact and lost the readable steam I like. It had a lot of information I didn't know and what glad to read about I just didn't enjoy the text book strukture
magnetarmadda's review
3.0
This is an important book, showing prejudices in our Anglo-historical narrative of racism. It shows that people of varying skin colors lived and thrived in a location during a time period when it was thought impossible.
However, it was not an exciting book. It was repetitive, with each chapter hashing a lot of the same material ten pages in—it could easily have been 100 pages shorter and much more engaging. It’s much less a narrative than it is a regurgitation of facts the author uncovered and the attempt to create a narrative leaves the read with a lot of unnecessary details from other cultures and events (I don’t care about Louis from France, you’re talking about a black woman living in England, stay focused.)
It was worthwhile to learn new information, but I wish it had felt less like a textbook and more like a narrative nonfiction.
However, it was not an exciting book. It was repetitive, with each chapter hashing a lot of the same material ten pages in—it could easily have been 100 pages shorter and much more engaging. It’s much less a narrative than it is a regurgitation of facts the author uncovered and the attempt to create a narrative leaves the read with a lot of unnecessary details from other cultures and events (I don’t care about Louis from France, you’re talking about a black woman living in England, stay focused.)
It was worthwhile to learn new information, but I wish it had felt less like a textbook and more like a narrative nonfiction.
hmalagisi's review
4.0
I have always enjoyed reading about the Tudor time period and learning new things about it. There have been some titles that have caught my eye and I have wanted to read for quite some time. This is one such book: “Black Tudors: The Untold Story” by Miranda Kaufmann.
Now when I first thought about the title, I was a little shocked. For me growing up in the United States, I have always believed that Africans in England would have been treated like Africans in Spain and the American colonies, as slaves. This, however, is not the case. Miranda Kaufmann reveals a new part of the African story in the time of colonization.
Kaufmann divides the story of Africans in England into ten chapters telling the stories of ten different individuals: John Blanke the trumpeter, Jacques Francis the salvage diver, Diego the circumnavigator, Edward Swarthye the Porter, Reasonable Blackman the Silk Weaver, Mary Fillis a Moroccan convert, Dederi Jaquoah a prince of River Cestos, John Anthony a Mariner from Dover, Anne Cobbie a prostitute, and Cattelena of Almondsbury an independent woman farmer. By showing each of these individuals’ stories, Kaufmann is painting a picture of a larger story of these men and women who came to England from their native Africa. Some came to better themselves, others had no choice in the matter. Some were servants for wealthy families and others were independent men and women who used their skills to make a better life for their families and themselves.
I thoroughly enjoyed learning about these men and women. Kaufmann has a way of writing that is both educational and enjoyable. For those who are unaware of what some of these positions were like in the time of the Tudors, Kaufmann breaks it down in a way that is understandable. Kaufmann explains that:
“The history of the Black Tudors is an aspect of British history that deserves a wider audience. It shows that when we ask new questions of the past we get new, and often surprising, answers. We thought we knew Tudor England, but this book reveals a different country, where an African could earn a living, marry and have a family, testify in a court of law, or even whip an Englishman with impunity.”
If you want to learn about a new aspect of Tudor society, I highly recommend you read this book. These stories are just as important as the monarchs who capture our imagination on the time. These are the stories of average people trying to survive in the Tudor period.
Now when I first thought about the title, I was a little shocked. For me growing up in the United States, I have always believed that Africans in England would have been treated like Africans in Spain and the American colonies, as slaves. This, however, is not the case. Miranda Kaufmann reveals a new part of the African story in the time of colonization.
Kaufmann divides the story of Africans in England into ten chapters telling the stories of ten different individuals: John Blanke the trumpeter, Jacques Francis the salvage diver, Diego the circumnavigator, Edward Swarthye the Porter, Reasonable Blackman the Silk Weaver, Mary Fillis a Moroccan convert, Dederi Jaquoah a prince of River Cestos, John Anthony a Mariner from Dover, Anne Cobbie a prostitute, and Cattelena of Almondsbury an independent woman farmer. By showing each of these individuals’ stories, Kaufmann is painting a picture of a larger story of these men and women who came to England from their native Africa. Some came to better themselves, others had no choice in the matter. Some were servants for wealthy families and others were independent men and women who used their skills to make a better life for their families and themselves.
I thoroughly enjoyed learning about these men and women. Kaufmann has a way of writing that is both educational and enjoyable. For those who are unaware of what some of these positions were like in the time of the Tudors, Kaufmann breaks it down in a way that is understandable. Kaufmann explains that:
“The history of the Black Tudors is an aspect of British history that deserves a wider audience. It shows that when we ask new questions of the past we get new, and often surprising, answers. We thought we knew Tudor England, but this book reveals a different country, where an African could earn a living, marry and have a family, testify in a court of law, or even whip an Englishman with impunity.”
If you want to learn about a new aspect of Tudor society, I highly recommend you read this book. These stories are just as important as the monarchs who capture our imagination on the time. These are the stories of average people trying to survive in the Tudor period.
tucholsky's review
1.0
Little insight into the lives of Black people or indeed people from abroad in general. Furthermore it only gives a few recorded details of attitudes to overseas or people from overseas on the part of ordinary British of the time. Jeffrey Brotton book on the subject (although looking at a slightly wider subject) seems to have found or used the available sources to a much better effect
berlinbibliophile's review against another edition
4.0
Fascinating stories of Tudor lives we don't usually read about. I was especially interested in the lives of the Black women Kaufmann writes about. Sometimes the chapters wandered a bit too far away from their subject for my taste, but the author always brought it back to the central figure in the end. The people she writes about are all very different from another, and each was interesting to read about.