Reviews

Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy by Heather Ann Thompson

dellaposta's review against another edition

4.0

Thompson details the events of the Attica prison riot and state retaking; subsequent state efforts at suppressing knowledge of these events; myriad legal battles fought by the surviving prisoners; and the activism and persistence that eventually forced a settlement decades later. Much of this is frankly pretty dry reading, but it’s first-rate history and Thompson has done a service by bringing this important story to greater light in all its excruciating detail.

tablereader234's review against another edition

5.0

Absolutely required reading. An incredibly important history of both the personal and institutional failures and evils of the Prison Uprising. If you're on the fence about reading this, I can't recommend this strongly enough.

spacebee's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

5.0

knittingchaos's review against another edition

4.0

This is a well researched and written book. Not just about the riot, but all the stuff that happened afterwards.

jettuc's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.25

ekoster's review against another edition

challenging informative sad slow-paced

4.0

ttodd86's review against another edition

4.0

An intricately detailed history of the Attica riot from its root causes through the absurdly drawn out legal fights that were its aftermath. Sadly, although you want to be able to read this thinking "these events happened a long time ago," they are not limited to the past. The legal maneuvering by the state ended only very recently and much of the sentiment expressed by some of the key figures in the early 1970s sounds very similar to some of the rhetoric we hear today.
My only criticism of this book is that it is a very long book that seems to read even longer, if that makes sense. It took me an extremely long time to finish this book compared against my usual reading pace. Some of this is due to the subject matter, but I think some of this is also due to the writing. There are a lot of redundancies in the text -- some of this is necessary in a long and complicated work for reader clarity, but I felt like here it was just too much, at least in the case of some of the prisoners. I think this book would have benefitted a lot from a list at the front that would have eliminated the need for some of the redundancy and perhaps created a smoother, and more engaging read.
That said, this is an important book with an amazing amount of work and research behind it.

shadylane_00's review against another edition

challenging dark informative sad tense slow-paced

4.5

nderiley's review against another edition

3.0

DNF bc my library loan ran out, but this was sad and interesting. Extremely well researched - it's appalling how much the police were able to get away with in their cover up.

gemrvn's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative sad tense slow-paced

5.0