Reviews tagging 'Racism'

The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family by Annette Gordon-Reed

5 reviews

qqjj's review

challenging informative medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Physical abuse, Suicide, Death of parent, Slavery, Child death, Death, Medical trauma, Miscarriage, Alcoholism, Infertility, Colonisation, Classism, Pregnancy, Racial slurs, and Racism

shannasbooksnhooks's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful informative reflective tense slow-paced

4.0

Laws are sometimes put on the books not for purposes of strict enforcement but as statements about the community’s values.
This was a book that I found difficult to get into due to the heavy subject matter. I'm not 100% how exactly I feel about reviewing this book, considering all of the trauma of the Hemings family at the hands of white slave owners. However, I do think this is a good book to try to read, because it gives a lot of topics, through the story of one family, to think through and analyze. I did read this 15 years after its initial publication, so I think it might be nice to have an updated edition with any new information about the Hemings family.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism and Slavery

mscalls's review

challenging emotional informative reflective tense medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pregnancy, Child death, Rape, Sexual violence, Trafficking, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Colonisation, Death, Racial slurs, Racism, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Kidnapping, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Slavery, Classism, Suicide, and Toxic relationship

readiac1999's review

challenging informative reflective slow-paced

4.5

Read for a graduate school class. Gordon-Reed includes an incredible amount of detail but, for me, the second half of the book leaned too far in to interpreting the Hemingses and Jefferson's as emotionally linked rather than linked by slavery 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Slavery, and Trafficking

Moderate: Suicide

alreads13's review

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad slow-paced

5.0

Annette Gordon-Reed is a true historical detective. She pieced together so many stories from bits and pieces of information and caught the tiniest details to shed light on stories that have been purposely obfuscated. She looked at the Hemings’s lives from every possible angle and surrounded them with so much context you couldn’t doubt what she was saying. This book is a long one, but so worth it. It’s an important founding story of this country that needs to be told, and I’m so grateful it has been brought more completely into the light. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Slavery, Sexism, Religious bigotry, Rape, Racism, Misogyny, Grief, and Child abuse

Moderate: Child death, Violence, Sexual violence, Suicide, Racial slurs, Miscarriage, Kidnapping, and Domestic abuse

Minor: Alcoholism