An informative, engaging chronicle of organized and individual acts of resistance to slavery.
A dramatic, revealing chronicle of enslaved people resisting their oppressors through acts of defiance, escape, sabotage, organized rebellion and vengeful murder.
This entry in the A Peculiar History series opens dramatically with a description of the German Coast Uprising, a violent, widespread rebellion in French Louisiana in 1811, and proceeds with a mostly chronological account of acts of resistance and rebellion from the beginning of the Atlantic slave trade in the early 15th century. Subjects briefly touched upon include a 1712 New York City rebellion as well as revolts led by Gabriel Prosser, Nat Turner and Denmark Vesey. Aretha discusses the Haitian revolution but curiously fails to mention its leader, Toussaint L’Ouverture. In addition, Aretha covers everyday acts of rebellion by slaves such as burning barns, killing livestock, sabotaging crops, suicide, and infanticide by mothers who wished to keep their children from enslavement. There is good information on the draconian lengths colonies and states went to to discourage slave resistance of any kind. With an attractive design, the text is complemented with photographs, maps and reproductions of archival materials, many in color.
An informative, engaging chronicle of organized and individual acts of resistance to slavery. (timeline, source notes, bibliography, websites, index) (Nonfiction. 12-16)Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-59935-406-4
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Morgan Reynolds
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2014
In either iteration, a provocative counter to conventional, blinkered views of our national story.
A classic framing of this country’s history from a multicultural perspective, clumsily cut and recast into more simplified language for young readers.
Veering away from the standard “Master Narrative” to tell “the story of a nation peopled by the world,” the violence- and injustice-laden account focuses on minorities, from African- Americans (“the central minority throughout our country’s history”), Mexicans and Native Americans to Japanese, Vietnamese, Sikh, Russian Jewish and Muslim immigrants. Stefoff reduces Takaki’s scholarly but fluid narrative (1993, revised 2008) to choppy sentences and sound-bite quotes. She also adds debatable generalizations, such as a sweeping claim that Native Americans “lived outside of white society’s borders,” and an incorrect one that the Emancipation Proclamation “freed the slaves.” Readers may take a stronger interest in their own cultural heritage from this broad picture of the United States as, historically, a tapestry of ethnic identities that are “separate but also shared”—but being more readable and, by page count at least, only about a third longer, the original version won’t be out of reach of much of the intended audience, despite its denser prose.
In either iteration, a provocative counter to conventional, blinkered views of our national story. (endnotes, glossary, index) (Nonfiction. 12-15)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-60980-416-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Seven Stories
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
Thorough to a fault, and for young readers at least, no replacement for Jim Murphy’s oldie but goodie The Long Road to...
Wagonloads of detail weigh down this overstuffed account of the Civil War’s most significant battle and its aftermath.
Martin builds his narrative around numerous eyewitness accounts, despite the implication of the subtitle. He covers events from the rival armies’ preliminary jockeying for position to Lee’s retreat, the heroic efforts to care for the thousands of wounded soldiers left behind, as well as the establishment some months later of the cemetery that was the occasion for Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. The battle itself, though, quickly becomes a dizzying tally of this regiment going here, that brigade charging there, the movements insufficiently supported by the small, hard-to-read battle maps. Overheated lines like “As the armies met in battle, the ground…soaked up the blood of Americans flowing into the soil” have a melodramatic effect. Moreover, as nearly everyone mentioned even once gets one or more period portraits, the illustrations become a tedious gallery of look-alike shots of scowling men with heavy facial hair. Still, the author does offer a cogent, carefully researched view of the battle and its significance in both the short and long terms.
Thorough to a fault, and for young readers at least, no replacement for Jim Murphy’s oldie but goodie The Long Road to Gettysburg (1992). (glossary, index, bibliography) (Nonfiction. 12-15)Pub Date: June 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-62087-532-2
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Sky Pony Press
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
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