You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.

Reviews tagging 'Kidnapping'

How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith

21 reviews

chels_ro's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark informative reflective fast-paced

4.75

a informative book on the origins of chattel slavery to its modern connections of the prison industrial complex and civil rights. Smith breaks down common misconceptions and whitewashed history through each chapter as he visits a different place. my only complaint is that it’s not longer. 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings

mnatale100's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging emotional informative reflective fast-paced

5.0

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

zosiablue's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging informative sad medium-paced

4.25

Incredibly powerful and personal. The author visits sites around US (and one in Africa) to explore those places' relationships with slavery. Most of the history I didn't know, including the chapter about the cemetery a mile from my parents' house, one I drove by every day on my last visit. The Angola prison section was especially shocking to me; I didn't know there was a gift shop attached to the prison mocking its cruelty. I also appreciated how the author was open about his own gaps here - parts he didn't know or details he focused on that later he realized weren't important. Smith is a poet, so occasionally the writing got a little purple, but not enough to detract. An important book.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings

wifeslife's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging emotional informative inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

5.0

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

brynalexa's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

Poetic, powerful, and thought-provoking. Filled in some gaps in my education while inspiring me to seek out more information on the world’s cruel history. 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings

amsswim's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

I very much encourage everyone to read or listen to this book. Follow the author to important heritage sites to the legacy of slavery through the US and beyond; plantations, prisons, confederate cemeteries.  Made me very reflective on random interactions I have had over the years and how the people in my family history may have interacted. The content is graphic and unflinching, which is entirely necessary. It is also one of the best written non-fiction books I have read, I believe because you are going on a journey with the author. I am unable to summarize so much of one amazing book, so I am just going to say again read it.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings

discarded_dust_jacket's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging emotional informative reflective medium-paced

3.5

This is such a poignant and well-written book. Smith has such a talent for making the locations mentioned (and by extension, their history) so viscerally tangible; it felt like you were standing there with him, experiencing the weight of those places alongside him.

The locations themselves were well-curated: highlighting both places where we, as present day Americans, are attempting to reckon with our nation’s past relationship with chattel slavery, and places where we are instead choosing to prioritize comfort over truth.

It asks us to question (among other things) all we’ve been taught about a) those who were supposedly “the good guys” like Thomas Jefferson, and b) the “innocence” of northern cities, both pre- and post-civil war. It asks us not to shy away from discomfort, but to face the ugly truth head on. And no matter what was being discussed, it continued to remind us of the personhood of enslaved people—never allowing us to reduce the enslaved population of the United States to a faceless, amorphous concept in our minds, but instead repeatedly giving enslaved people names, identities, cultures, and deep familial bonds. Always always always reminding us: these were human beings. These were people. I really appreciated that aspect of Smith’s storytelling.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings

analenegrace's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging informative
I was fortunate enough to meet Clint Smith and get a free signed copy at a university book event over a year ago, but I just now got to reading it. Smith is an amazing writer whose poetry clearly influences his prose, and it is written in such a compelling and beautiful book, even with the difficult subject matter. 

I cannot recommend reading this book, especially if you're trying to deconstruct what racism in America looks like. While there are so many lines I marked as pivotal to the book, the most important comes on page 289 in his epilogue, 

"The history of slavery is the history of the United States. It was not peripheral to our founding; it was central to it. It is not irrelevant to our contemporary society; it created it. This history is in our soil, it is in our policies, and it must, too, be in our memories."
Expand filter menu Content Warnings

heatherilene's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

leahkarge's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging emotional informative sad tense slow-paced

4.0

Expand filter menu Content Warnings