Reviews

The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story by New York Times Company, Nikole Hannah-Jones

kurtwombat's review against another edition

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

5.0

 

This staggering work seeks to reset our understanding of slavery and its lingering aftermath—to take our limited view of history and expand it dramatically—like an empty balloon suddenly filled. It does so with a collection of essays that approach our American history and our American present from many different angles—political, economic, geographic, psychological, sociological etc. The essays are bridged by recollections and poetry and short fiction that act as palate cleansers before the plunge into the next demanding chapter.  I listened to the 18+ hour audiobook and enjoyed the different voices—especially when the bridges were performed. The spoken narration drew me out of myself and I believe I was more receptive to the information. The bridges reaffirmed what the chapters had to say or prefaced what was to come.  The essays themselves vary in quality and impact but as a collection 1619 packs quite a wallop—alternately inspiring outrage and sadness but always inspiring. I understand the desire to add this to school curriculums—and even to create entire courses around it (I think in some form or another it should be in every school until our educational system improves enough to grow beyond it)—but I would encourage close monitoring for younger readers. Some of this material, making up the fabric of our nation, covers the worst of what humanity is capable—horrific  brutality the thread of which still runs through today.  Indeed much of the impact comes from blending the intimate with the big picture—looking into the eyes of history. I see this book as kind of a solution guide. I knew there was a puzzle and I could see some of the pieces and suspected there were others but I had no idea how many or how they all fit together. If you doubt the need for such a book, take a look at a few of the one star reviews—filled with the kind of negative passion born of ignorance and fear. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Deportation, Forced institutionalization, Sexual violence, Violence, Colonisation, Emotional abuse, Gore, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Racial slurs, Rape, Child abuse, Confinement, Police brutality, Blood, Cultural appropriation, Genocide, Murder, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Child death, Death, Death of parent, Body horror, Racism, Slavery, and Torture

A fantastic must read by all Americans. Suggest pre-high schoolers read with parental supervision.

jananih's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad slow-paced

adventuring_librarian's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective slow-paced

3.5

cchapple's review against another edition

5.0

This book is an incredible production, just a perfect storm of brilliance and honesty. Meticulously researched and extremely well written. This is simply American history that is vital to understanding our country.

nabbott's review against another edition

challenging informative slow-paced

5.0

bhinshaw's review against another edition

Excellent and import work on slavery. But I needed something lighter. 

beaver313's review against another edition

informative medium-paced

5.0

kalkn's review against another edition

1.0

The inaccuracies in this are evidence of why historians, not journalists, are best for writing a history book. This novel makes for a sad viewing of an alternate existence of America that never did and still doesn't exist. Links below countering themes found in the book. It's interesting that The NY Times (publisher of the book) has so many links debunking their own book.

It's sad to see a book so filled with ideology, instead of accuracy, is appearing in so many schools as mandatory reading.

Links debunking book below:
Historians (black and left-leaning) call out book for being inaccurate - https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/20/magazine/we-respond-to-the-historians-who-critiqued-the-1619-project.html

Refusal to correct historical inaccuracies - https://www.nas.org/blogs/article/pulitzer-board-must-revoke-nikole-hannah-jones-prize

Debunking points made by author - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/09/opinion/nyt-1619-project-criticisms.html

Slavery still existed in British Empire 50 years after American Revolution - https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/slavery-abolition-act-1833

Economy of the south held back by slavery -
https://www.historycentral.com/CivilWar/AMERICA/Economics.html
https://www.amazon.com/Big-Lies-About-America-Destructive/dp/0307394077
https://www.amazon.com/Race-Culture-World-Thomas-Sowell/dp/0465067972

360,000+ soldiers from the north died to free 4,000,000+ slaves -
https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/c/costs-major-us-wars.html

US is overcoming racism -
Vote on the Civil Rights Act of 1964 - https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/88-1964/s409
Rates of Africans immigrating to the US are rising - https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2017/02/14/african-immigrant-population-in-u-s-steadily-climbs/

kdawn999's review against another edition

4.0

This is a very good re-centering of US history around the far-reaching legacy of slavery and a fair indictment of the false narrative of “progress” often fed to us in what passes for high school history class. Part of the energy of this work comes from the various voices in the essay anthology, which often overlap in referencing the same events from different lenses—from health care to music. However, I sometimes found myself wishing for a more comprehensive history text without the leaps and gaps across certain decades. This book does well what it sets out to do, which is ultimately to make the case for reparations to descendants of enslaved Africans.

veebeepham's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative slow-paced

4.25

This book should be required school text book