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A review by marcellainthemargins
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
I'll start by saying this book is the best book I have read for a long time and I hope I can do it justice.
In The Warmth of Other Suns Isabel Wilkerson tackles the immense topic of the America's great migration. Between 1915 and 1970 roughly 6 billion black Americans migrated from the South to the north and west in search of a better life.
She frames the story around three individuals, who each were part of the exodus at different parts of the country, at different times and for different reasons. And places their stories in the bigger historical context.
This book is so huge in scope, and the amount of research that you know that went into this book so astonishing, yet it feels so intimate.
I loved getting to know Ida Mae, George and Robert, three very different people, but all of them with their own tales to tell. Getting to know them so well makes you realise even more that all these other billions of people who migrated were also individuals, with each their own stories.
And along side being complety invested in their lifes, I also learned so much about this part of the American history and could connect it to the current issues around racism the country deals with now.
It is a difficult topic to read about, and obviously content warnings are in place. There is especially some lynchings being described that were hard to read. But despite it being a heavy topic, I never found it a struggle to read. Wilkerson's writing has a flow to it that make it such an engaging read.
It isn't often I read a book that I want to push into everyone's hand to read, but this one is. At once profound and delightful.
In The Warmth of Other Suns Isabel Wilkerson tackles the immense topic of the America's great migration. Between 1915 and 1970 roughly 6 billion black Americans migrated from the South to the north and west in search of a better life.
She frames the story around three individuals, who each were part of the exodus at different parts of the country, at different times and for different reasons. And places their stories in the bigger historical context.
This book is so huge in scope, and the amount of research that you know that went into this book so astonishing, yet it feels so intimate.
I loved getting to know Ida Mae, George and Robert, three very different people, but all of them with their own tales to tell. Getting to know them so well makes you realise even more that all these other billions of people who migrated were also individuals, with each their own stories.
And along side being complety invested in their lifes, I also learned so much about this part of the American history and could connect it to the current issues around racism the country deals with now.
It is a difficult topic to read about, and obviously content warnings are in place. There is especially some lynchings being described that were hard to read. But despite it being a heavy topic, I never found it a struggle to read. Wilkerson's writing has a flow to it that make it such an engaging read.
It isn't often I read a book that I want to push into everyone's hand to read, but this one is. At once profound and delightful.