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A review by ttodd86
Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy by Heather Ann Thompson
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.
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.