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mkinne's review against another edition
5.0
This is definitely a syllabus and academic, but still largely accessible to this out-of-practice reader of academia. As I got further into the book it became harder to read because events and situations are arranged chronologically so that by the time I got to the last few essays about prejudice & racism in suburban Chicago, it was only a handful of years before I moved there as an adult with my husband and children & I feel complicit in the whole rotten system (because of this and other reading). Still, this was eye-opening to me in so many ways and I'm glad to have read it and have it in my library to go back to when needed, and I'm sure I'll be going back to re-read portions of it.
sagejenn47's review against another edition
5.0
This is a really important, useful interdisciplinary book for teaching the history as well as current analysis of race and racial violence in the U.S. It's not meant to be comprehensive, but rather a doorway into many kinds of analysis. It's an incredibly vital, useful introduction that I hope many students have a chance to read.
kazen's review against another edition
4.0
As an American in Japan there's literally half a world between me and events in my home country. Major news gets clipped down by the Japanese media - "Yet another shooting in America. Somebody shot X people because of historical hatred/current events/being psychologically unstable. Y people are protesting. Police are investigating."
After the Charleston shooting, where a white male shot nine black people in a racially motivated crime, I knew I needed more information. The Japanese news didn't have it. The American online media added some background, but not enough. Luckily #CharlestonSyllabus, a hashtag on Twitter started by the editors of this book, collected all kinds of books, articles, primary source documents, and even songs that related to the shooting and the history that leads up to it. The list is extensive and deep; you can find it here and at the back of the book.
Extensive and deep is good, but it also meant I had no idea where I should start. I put a couple of titles on my library wish list, where they still linger.
That's where this one volume Charleston Syllabus comes in. It's organized into six chapters covering everything from slavery and religion to Malcolm X and Black Lives Matter. Each section starts off with a historical overview before turning over to historical documents, scholarly analysis, and articles from the days and weeks after the massacre. I love how all the different kinds of writing nestle up against each other - a slave's first person account next to a song they may have sung while working, next to a scholarly article on the events of the period. The variety and breadth of the sources help you get a deep understanding of the historical context and how it relates to today's news.
Throughout the book I found myself thinking, how could my education have failed me so badly? Why haven't I studied Ida B. Wells-Barnett, a kick butt investigative journalist? Why wasn't an annotated Constitution of the Confederate States put before me? There is so much more history than the cotton gin and Martin Luther King, Jr.
Charleston Syllabus filled in many of those holes in my knowledge. It opened my eyes to topics and controversies I only heard of in passing. It gave me a lot to think about and pointed me towards time periods and people I'd like to study more deeply.
If you're American this book will help you grapple with the complicated mess that is racial relations in our country. If you're not American it will show you how current events are related to a long and terrifying history of slavery and oppression. Charleston Syllabus is a must read for anyone that wants to understand how things went wrong and think about where we can go from here.
Thanks to University of Georgia Press and NetGalley for providing a review copy.
After the Charleston shooting, where a white male shot nine black people in a racially motivated crime, I knew I needed more information. The Japanese news didn't have it. The American online media added some background, but not enough. Luckily #CharlestonSyllabus, a hashtag on Twitter started by the editors of this book, collected all kinds of books, articles, primary source documents, and even songs that related to the shooting and the history that leads up to it. The list is extensive and deep; you can find it here and at the back of the book.
Extensive and deep is good, but it also meant I had no idea where I should start. I put a couple of titles on my library wish list, where they still linger.
That's where this one volume Charleston Syllabus comes in. It's organized into six chapters covering everything from slavery and religion to Malcolm X and Black Lives Matter. Each section starts off with a historical overview before turning over to historical documents, scholarly analysis, and articles from the days and weeks after the massacre. I love how all the different kinds of writing nestle up against each other - a slave's first person account next to a song they may have sung while working, next to a scholarly article on the events of the period. The variety and breadth of the sources help you get a deep understanding of the historical context and how it relates to today's news.
Throughout the book I found myself thinking, how could my education have failed me so badly? Why haven't I studied Ida B. Wells-Barnett, a kick butt investigative journalist? Why wasn't an annotated Constitution of the Confederate States put before me? There is so much more history than the cotton gin and Martin Luther King, Jr.
Charleston Syllabus filled in many of those holes in my knowledge. It opened my eyes to topics and controversies I only heard of in passing. It gave me a lot to think about and pointed me towards time periods and people I'd like to study more deeply.
If you're American this book will help you grapple with the complicated mess that is racial relations in our country. If you're not American it will show you how current events are related to a long and terrifying history of slavery and oppression. Charleston Syllabus is a must read for anyone that wants to understand how things went wrong and think about where we can go from here.
Thanks to University of Georgia Press and NetGalley for providing a review copy.
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