lmfry's review against another edition

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challenging emotional informative inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

5.0


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alphawolfe13's review

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challenging emotional reflective slow-paced

4.0

It is an informative and enlightening book. In my opinion the writing can be a little repetitive to the point I feel like I'm reading previous chapters. I would have preferred a chronological dive into events and how they shaped history over bouncing from topic to topic. Otherwise, I'm excited to use this in my classroom in order to better help students understand the black experience. 

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mentalish's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative sad slow-paced

4.75


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madamenovelist's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative medium-paced

5.0


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tlaynejones's review

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challenging emotional informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0


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lindseyhall44's review

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relaxing

5.0

“For generations we have believed in this country with faith it did not deserve. Black people have seen the worst in America yet somehow, we still believe in its best.”- The 1619 project 

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readandfindout's review

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challenging informative medium-paced

4.5

Style/writing: 4.5 stars
Themes: 4.5 stars
Perspective: 4.5 stars

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lilacs_book_bower's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad slow-paced

4.25

This is a collection of essays that are well worth reading, and cover the many contributions made by enslaved people and later by the freed Black people to America, whether economic, medical, religious, and the arts.  It is really unfortunate that a lot of this will be new information to people due to the white washing of history that is taught in a lot of schools.  Some of the essays are very hard to read due to the content, but it is important to know what really happened with the horrible ways Black people were enslaved, punished, or killed just for "succeeding" in life, because without understanding and acknowledging that, we cannot begin to move forward in reconciliation and reparations.  The ramifications of what happened in 1619 are still echoing down through the centuries today and influencing vast aspects of American life.  Some of the early history essays covered familiar ground for me (Government BA with a lot of History classes), so I personally enjoyed more the topics on Medicine, religion, art, etc, but there are some excellent essays there for people less familiar with that early history.  And even so, I still learned from those early essays.  The only reason I don't give this a full 5 stars is that a few of the essays did feel a bit repetitive, covering essentially the same ground.  A few essays felt a bit too short and I wished they had been expanded. 

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mysterymom40's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0


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kimveach's review against another edition

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challenging emotional informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

A book blogger suggested that this is a great audiobook. I'm afraid I have to disagree. The authors read the essays; unfortunately, not all authors are great narrators. The performances of the poems would be the exception. After nearly falling asleep while driving the car, I decided to try reading it another way. Thankfully, Kindle had a sale that included both the written and audio versions of the book.

The essays are enlightening and contain the history I wish I had learned in school.

While there have been criticisms, I feel this New York Times response best describes the purpose of the book. "The very premise of The 1619 Project, in fact, is that many of the inequalities that continue to afflict the nation are a direct result of the unhealed wound created by 250 years of slavery and an additional century of second-class citizenship and white-supremacist terrorism inflicted on black people (together, those two periods account for 88 percent of our history since 1619). These inequalities were the starting point of our project — the facts that, to take just a few examples, black men are nearly six times as likely to wind up in prison as white men, or that black women are three times as likely to die in childbirth as white women, or that the median family wealth for white people is $171,000, compared with just $17,600 for black people. The rampant discrimination that black people continue to face across nearly every aspect of American life suggests that neither the framework of the Constitution nor the strenuous efforts of political leaders in the past and the present, both white and black, has yet been able to achieve the democratic ideals of the founding for all Americans."

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