Annette Gordon-Reed: The New Yorker, Vol. 1 - A Fresh Start

Sakamoto, y.: I recommend everyone, especially newly naturalized US citizen like myself, to read this book. Although I didn't know anything about Juneteenth until it became federal holiday in 2021, I was immediately captivated by Gordon-Reed's unemotional narrative approach to describe historical background of Texas, the last state that grudgingly accepted Emancipation Proclamation, and the birth place of this holiday. I learned a great deal of history of Texas that helped me connect segments of information that I previously had into a full diagram. 159 years is a long time, and time changes people. I only visited Dallas twice, and both times I felt genuine hospitality from everyone I encountered. History is the past, but without it, we don't have the present. This book also invokes the readers to contemplate human nature in general.

United States on Sep 16, 2023

Cordell: This book is both informative and thought-provoking. Dr. Gordon-Reed does a terrific job explaining the complexities of Texas’ history and how this impacts its citizens today.

United States on Sep 10, 2023

Stewart: Couldn’t put this down. As a non American this was a real eye opener. Lent it to others who have felt the same way. Congratulations and thanks to the author

Australia on Oct 30, 2021

lalto: This book is really interesting. As a Canadian, I learned a lot about the history of Texas before Juneteenth. The book is about the context and events leading up to Juneteenth, not the ways that the holiday has been celebrated over the years. But it is really, really short. While I did notice before ordering that it was not the usual length for an historical book (it is 128 pages), I did not pay attention to the dimensions. The printed page is 3 x 6 inches. Feel a little ripped off that I paid full price for such a small word count. This is not to disparage the author whose historical research and style of writing are terrific, but the publisher in the pricing and marketing of this as a full book has really exploited the current interest in Juneteenth. Five stars for the author; one star off for the publisher.

Canada on Jun 19, 2021

M Prywes: Annette Gordon-Reed is a professor at Harvard Law School and the author of the Pulitzer winning 'The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family, 2008.' She’s an historian who has published books on Colonial America, slavery, and law. She grew up in Conroe, a former oil town in the pine woods of East Texas.

The author writes in a fluid, easy-to-read style. Her tone is passionate. The book is dense with historical background and facts, yet it’s ultimately personal rather than scholarly.

It’s about the ways that history influences the world around us. It shapes our communities, our parents, and our own perceptions and feelings about ourselves. The history of Texas is a dramatic case. It’s a story of slavery, lynching, and segregation, and also of family-building, of African-American community, and of survival. In short, this book assimilates the meaning of this Afro-American history, by explaining it in terms of its consequences for her family history, for her childhood, and hence for her present self.

A major theme is that the way Texas history was taught in schooled influenced how African-American children came to see themselves. Some of these ways are...

United States on May 07, 2021

Mindo'ermatter: Annette Gordon-Reed's insightful collection of six essays about Texas' complex history of African Americans spanning from the 1500s to the lifetime of the author provides critical contexts to the problems imposed by slavery and its lasting repercussions both upon Texas and the United States. Well documented and written in an engaging style, this work encapsulates essential viewpoints needed in our national retrospective of American life, culture, history, and combined soul.

Each essay has a different tone and subject emphasis. Although each standalone chapter is independently worthwhile, their combined message teach us strong lessons of why the mistakes of the past must never be glossed over or justified.

Strikingly clear are focused arguments on Texas' original constitution that enshrined slavery and forbid free-blacks from residing in the country then state. When emancipation came on June 19, 1865 ("Juneteenth"), the promises made were thwarted at every step, implemented in stages over a century, and still lagging behind other states in cultural acceptance.

The essays tell how Texas history includes a troubled assimilation of Native American, Hispanic,...

United States on May 06, 2021