Porter

faux vocalizations

Revisado: 08-19-22

This is one of those books that is good enough that I'm going to go out and pick up the printed book, but couldn't stand the narrator.

The narrator enunciated every syllable with perfect pronunciation obtained only through meticulous study and practice. It reminded me of when one speaks with a pretentious voice mocking the upper class---but I don't think that was the intent.

I listened to the first two chapters and found the story to be fascinating and well done. The book presents early black history in the colonies and Revolution in an informational manner.

It does not feel like a polemic about the evils of white America, but a very informative book about the forgotten role of black America.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 4 personas

audio as bad as you feared for this claasic

Revisado: 07-25-21

Back in the 90s I read comic books.

The comic book store gave me a copy of the first graphic novel and told me that if I didn't like it, to give it back.

I ended up paying for it... I love the series.

When I saw that it had been made into a book I thought it could be very good or very bad.

The audio is basically a poorly done radio program from the 1930s with dialog from the comic without the visuals.

Fail.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Read the book, not the audio

Revisado: 07-26-20

It is everywhere. The odds are that you are wearing something made of cotton right now. It has been a basic part of life for the past two hundred years.

It is hard to imagine a world without cotton, but up until the late 1700s, cotton was a luxury or something people grew for personal use. Heck, despite the fact that the first millionaires in the United States derived their wealth from cotton; the uniforms of Confederate soldiers were made of wool---not cotton. (Of course, this stems from the fact that wool can keep people warm when wet, whereas cotton clothes doesn’t and the risk of hypothermia during the Civil War exceeded the risk of heat stroke.)

But still.

Prior to the Civil War it was more profitable for people to use their land to grow cotton than it was to build factories to process it! Thanks to Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin, the ability to harvest and utilize cotton grew exponentially.

What had been a luxury, became common place. The first half of this book reminded me a lot of the Edmund Morris’ classic “American Slavery, American Freedom.” Many of the ideas and concepts discussed there were touched upon here. For example, the idea that children (particularly sons) were expected to live with their parents through their mid-20s to offset the costs of their upbringing. Or the notion that people were expected to commit to working for their employer for 2-5 years to make the efforts mutually beneficial was the norm. Sharing cropping was the norm long before the Civil War (although it had started to fade from Northern practices before then.) Or the idea that raising cotton, while potentially more lucrative than tobacco, sugar, or other products had a much steeper entry fee---one couldn’t make a profit with cotton without investing in the technology first.

About half way through this book, I described it as the <i>Reader’s Digest</i> version of Morris’s book.

Morris’s book, however, ends with the Civil War and is very Virginia-centric. Beckertt’s book is truly global in its perspective. I do not recall if he mentioned Australia, but he spends a significant portion of the time discussion the history and usage of Cotton on the other 6 continents (and the Middle East.)

While I prefer Morris’s book over Beckertt’s, it is in the global perspective that his book has significant value. Beckertt discusses how Cotton truly was and is a global phenomenon. How certain areas have dominated the cotton trade and have each had success doing so. Despite the fact that Cotton was THE cash crop of the Confederate States, most cotton products are made elsewhere today.

The discussion of how (and where) these markets arose had a significant affect on how and why European countries (namely France and England) got involved in the United States Civil War!

The periods after the Civil War, as share cropping developed its negative connotations in America are also interesting---as are the part of the book that discusses industrialization and the role of cotton.

Over all, the book is very interesting and worth reading.

That being said, I have two negative comments that apply to the audio book:

1) I listened to this book via Audible. There is a faint recurrent sound in the background that drove me bonkers. I did not hear it if I was listening via my headphones, but if I was simply playing the audio I kept hearing what sounded like somebody letting out a sigh. It was not the narrator, but it really distracted from the quality of the audio book.

2) There are a lot of sections wherein the author cited growth rates/costs between regions and time periods. I suspect that these were tables/charts in the book, but on the audio the encompassed large segments that made it hard to digest. These charts/tables undoubtedly added a lot of visual value to the printed book, but as an audio book they failed... and apparently there were a lot of charts and tables in this book.

Had I read this book, it probably would have gotten 4 stars, but the audio is lucky to get 3.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

happy slave myth

Revisado: 07-09-20

The book was ok, but the ending absolutely blew it.

after the South lost, the slave owner comes to his slaves to tell them that they are free. they can stay or go, but if they start he will pay them a fair wage, but would no longer be responsible for their care.

his slaves announce that they could never imagine leaving, he was a good Master a fair Master. and they all love him.

to which he wakes on about how good of a master he was. I did take care of you. I feed you, bought you clothing, called the doctor etc.

still to slaves announce that they are leaving. do the good Master insists on writing then a letter to get them through and patrols and to vouch for the quality of slaves they were. and before you go, let me pack you a basket of food to help you in your way.

after they leave, he reflects that it doesn't surprise him that they were the two slaves to leave because they were the best of his slaves. their leaving gives him hope for the black race in the future.

yeah.... the happy slave myth

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

bait and switch

Revisado: 03-13-20

the story want really about the EIC, it was about the history of India. I was hoping for broader treatment of the subject.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Let me guess? Locke was a gay black man?

Revisado: 01-21-20

The 2019 Pulitzer Prize winning book about the "Father of the Harlem Renaissance".

You would think that this book would easily rate 4 or 5 stars.

So why am I giving it a weak 3 star rating? Because I felt that the author missed a golden opportunity.

The Harlem Renaissance (AKA the New Negro Movement) is a period of American history that most American's do not know existed. Those who are familiar with it, are probably mostly familiar with it because of the impact it had on music (the birth of Jazz) and fashion. Other aspects (literature, drama, and philosophy) take a back seat.

Jeffrey Stewart chose to focus on Alain Locke.

Don't get me wrong, it is a biography on Alain Locke, so the subject is rightly Locke.

Unfortunately, nearly a 1,000 pages long and the book did not really provide a hook as to why we should care about Locke. Yes, at the end he discussed how Locke's New Negro impacted modern America, but thoughout the book I was more likely to think, "I can understand why Locke is less known than Booker T Washington or W.E.B Du Bois" than to think that he was a pivotal voice in black history/culture.

The book focused too much on Locke's sexual tensions/frustrations than upon his impact. When I finished this book I started listening to Robert Caro's Power Broker. The Power Broker, like the New Negro, is a huge book about a person I was not familiar with. Caro instantly connects with the listener and explains why the person is relevant. He also provides sufficient background and information about tangental characters/issues. The New Nego does neither.

The sections where Stewart discussed his philosophy/ideas were fascinating. Unfortunately, they were lost in Locke's pursuit of sex.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 6 personas

Editors should stand up to Pulitzer winner

Revisado: 12-03-19

There are certain conventions and norms that one expects when writing a biography. The biography is either going to be written chronologically or (less frequently) thematically. Those are the approaches that people know and are familiar. To do it any other way requires a skilled writer and a supportive editor/publisher.

Edmund Morris is a skilled writer. This is the fourth book that I have read by him. The first three (on Roosevelt) all received 5 stars from me and one earned Morris the Pulitzer Prize. Morris chose to break convention and write his biography largely in reverse chronological order.

This is either a stroke of genius or idiocy.

Unfortunately, in this case it was the later.

By tracing his life from the end to the beginning, one misses key aspects of certain event. The backstory that helps you understand the significance of an event is covered either briefly or not at all. Early in the book you feel dropped into a situation---for example, the electrocution of the elephant Topsy. As the book is written in reverse order, you encounter the elephant’s death without understanding the rivalry between AC and DC power. You do not know about the battles with Tesla or Edison’s being forced out of his own company. These events are told in earlier--- I mean later---chapters. As such Morris is forced to spend more time setting the scenario of Topsy’s death. It also means that when you learn about issues that occurred earlier in Edison’s life, you sit there wishing that you had that perspective when you read about the later event.

This was a frequent experience. Morris spent more time than necessary covering the back story of events at the end of Edison’s life, that you learn about at the end of the book. When you learn about the antecedent events it is not an ah-ha moment, but rather, “I wish I knew that when I he covered a later period of Edison’s life.”

The end of the book often felt as if he was foreshadowing events that he had already covered in great detail---“this was the first time he considered mining” or he was told that if he ever experienced a full solar eclipse that it would last just minutes.

By the time I finished the book, I had grown convinced that the editor made a mistake and put the chapters in the wrong order!

Yes, Morris (who recently passed away) was one of the greats---but his editors or publishers should have told him no. They should have said, “We know you won a Pulitzer, but this does not work.” His editors and publishers failed him. This book had the promise of being very good, but structurally it failed.

The editors and publishers deserve additional scorn for the way they handled the audio book. I think they realized that having the book written in reverse chronology would be difficult to follow, so they kept each chapter in the audio book tied to a decade of his life. This means that each audio chapter is up to 6 hours in length. If you accidentally forward or rewind an audio chapter, it is extremely difficult and time consuming to find you place.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 42 personas

not what I expected

Revisado: 07-17-19

book isn't about 13 American Colonies, but about all of the people who lived the areas that is now the United States. very good

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 4 personas

not civil rights, but media history

Revisado: 07-01-19

if you are looking for a book featuring The main characters/events of the Civil Rights movement this book isn't for you. this book is about the news sources, journalist, cameramen, etc that covered Civil Rights.

the Civil Rights movement is the background for the real story.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Which is worse the story or the performance?

Revisado: 02-02-19

Bad... and I mean REALLY bad. I think the audible actors attended the James T Kirk school of narration. Just no.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña