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plena 's review for:
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
This is a history book with an ax to grind (as all history books should be), incredibly ambitious in scope and packed full of so much information that I imagine it would be impossible to read it and not learn something new, no matter how much background one already had in African or African American history. Like in Trouillot's Silencing the Past, place and personal experience form an important element of the fabric of the book, and French's background as a journalist really shines in those passages.
My frustration with this book is one I've experienced with a large number of books published in recent years: a few solid rounds of editing would have taken it from being a good book to a great book. This is more a critique of the copy editor than the author, but there were a number of places, especially towards the beginning of the book, where a really clunky sentence or odd word/punctuation choice would break my concentration. I also think the book would have benefitted from clearer roadmapping - as it is, there were several times I found myself reading a chapter with no clear idea of how it fit into the overall argument. So much of this book is so fabulous that I wish I could have read the best possible version of it, rather than simply the one that was publishable.
My frustration with this book is one I've experienced with a large number of books published in recent years: a few solid rounds of editing would have taken it from being a good book to a great book. This is more a critique of the copy editor than the author, but there were a number of places, especially towards the beginning of the book, where a really clunky sentence or odd word/punctuation choice would break my concentration. I also think the book would have benefitted from clearer roadmapping - as it is, there were several times I found myself reading a chapter with no clear idea of how it fit into the overall argument. So much of this book is so fabulous that I wish I could have read the best possible version of it, rather than simply the one that was publishable.