Struggle for Freedom, Volume 1: A History of African Americans to 1877

I have to review this book! It is a gem. I teach African American Studies at a liberal arts college in NJ and had given up using prepared texts long ago in favor of primary documents and topical books. The publisher sent this book as an exam copy; it languished on my desk for months. I only picked it up - when I finally did - because of authors Nash and Carson, whose work I had read elsewhere and respected. To my amazement, the text was incredibly readable, and not text-booky at all. On top of that, it was good history. I decided to give it a try. My students gave the book rave reviews. It's the first prepared text I ever used in 17 years of teaching that elicited students' emails and comments of appreciation. They were sharing the book with family members, reading it to their kids, and deciding to read more African American history because of it. Does it get better than that? Here are things I liked about the text: it begins on the continent of Africa and moves, with the African diaspora, across the Atlantic world to North America; it emphasizes the twin themes of agency and struggle, rooted in the lived realities of enslaved and free Africans; it distills the best scholarship available on Africans in early America, the Revolutionary era, the enslavement, rebellions, the Civil War, and free Blacks; it does not emphasize white voices talking about the Black experience, but Blacks claiming their own experience. Each chapter begins with the biography of a person (not necessarily well known, which helps to avoid the triteness of showcasing the usual superficially covered familiar figures)who represents an aspect of the moment in history the chapter engages. The opening narrative often captures the particular complexities of the moment in question, which are then developed in the rest of the chapter. With this approach, the students are urged to go deeper and to understand the historical context, as the good historian tries to do. This book is far from the survey approach. It is rich in detail and analysis. The book is a visual beauty,too. It is well laid out with just enough well chosen maps/art work/photos to add to the reader's interest and depth of background. Each chapter features a chronology of the topic addressed. Authors, publisher and layout people were all at their best in the making of this text. I have been wanting to write the authors, Clayborn Carson, Emma J. Lapsansky-Werner and Gary B. Nash a thank you note for developing a wonderful book. Here it is!

This is an easy to read history lesson. If you only learned the "whitewashed" version I learned you will surely find it eye-opening and perspective changing in terms of the history taught 20-30 years ago.