Library Journal Review
| Finkelman (Pres. William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law and Public Policy, Albany Law Sch., NY) has edited this fine and comprehensive four-volume set of African American history covering almost 400 years. Written by some 70 historians, entries span volumes that each address a specific period; Volume 1, 1619-1852; Volume 2, 1853-1900; Volume 3, 1901-1964; and Volume 4, 1965-2009. Each entry includes a time line, an overview, the context in which the document was written, the document's author, and an explanation and analysis of the document. It also includes a discussion of the intended audience and impact. At the end of each entry are questions for further study, related books and websites, and, finally, the document itself. Entries are arranged chronologically within each volume and feature numerous illustrations and photographs. Volume 4 includes a teacher's activity guide, as well as a list of documents by category and a subject index. The set includes the expected works from notable African Americans such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Thurgood Marshall, Barack Obama, and Martin Luther King Jr. Access to this set via Salem History online is included with purchase. Verdict A rich collection of primary source materials in African American history, this set would be a welcome addition to any library. Highly recommended.-Diane Fulkerson, Univ. of West Georgia, Carrollton (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. |
School Library Journal Review
| Gr 8 Up-One hundred and twenty-five speeches, documents, and chapters or passages from longer works are fully analyzed in this collection of selected primary sources. Coverage includes John Rolfe's casual mention in correspondence of "20 and odd Negroes" delivered as indentured servants in 1619; President Obama's address to the 2009 NAACP Centennial Convention; the "Ohio Black Code"; the wrenching Confessions of Nat Turner from the 1831 pamphlet authored by Thomas Ruffin Gray; Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have A Dream" address; and Clarence Thomas's acid "concurrence/dissent" in the Grutter v. Bollinger case. In each of the chronologically ordered entries, the document's text is preceded by a clear explanation of its significance, a context-placing essay, a biography of its author, a time line, a paragraph-by-paragraph analysis, a discussion of its audience and impact, one or more contemporary black-and-white illustrations, a multimedia resource list, and several study questions. References readers may be unfamiliar with and foreign words and phrases are outlined in glossaries following the texts. Back matter in volume 4 includes teacher activity guides keyed to national history standards. The set's full text is available online (through the end of 2011) in the "Salem History" database. As a print resource for upper-level students, this work substantially trumps Kai Wright's single-volume The African American Experience (Black Dog & Leventhal, 2009) as a primary-source supplement to Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates's Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience (Oxford, 2005).-John Peters, formerly at New York Public Library (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. |
