Amistad Rising: A Story of Freedom

Book Description

Joseph Cinqué is afraid he?ll never see his family again. Kidnapped by slave traders and sold at auction, he finds himself chained in the hull of a cramped ship, Amistad, with more than fifty other Africans--including a few children. Cinqué must do something. But what? In this truly epic adventure, Joseph Cinqué wants only one thing: freedom. But what he achieves, with the help of former president John Quincy Adams, is far, far greater--Joseph Cinqué makes history.

Customer Reviews:

Decent Introduction........2003-02-12

Until 1997 and the release of Spielberg's grand film, AMISTAD, I had never heard of the Amistad uprising. That movie, through a mix of fact and fiction, piqued my interest and I began reading and researching all I could about the Amistad. That search led to me learning a great deal more about African-American History than I had ever learned before. In the way the movie piqued my interest, AMISTAD RISING will pique younger student's interest in not only the Amistad, but a host of other subjects as well. The book itself is fairly short and contains some very powerful illustrations. The text skimps on the facts of the Amistad and relies a great deal upon the author's imagination to tell the story of Cinque. Nevertheless, there is enough factual information that children can learn something without becoming bored with the specifics of historical data. This is a wonderful book and children are fascinated by the pictures. Great reading for African-American History Month.

Amistad Rising.......2001-06-12

It was in 1839 and slavery was still prominent and legal. Many slave owners had become very rich from selling human beings and wanted to continue this way of life. Amistad Rising is written and published in a way that allows readers to visualize and imagine what life would be like for and African-American during the time of slavery. The reader is also allowed to identify with the main character Joseph Clinque and witness the events that occurred in his life. The reader is also made aware of how he was able to empower himself to settle the conflicts in his life. I believe this book would definitely appeal to students in grades six and up. Not only are they provided with the history of Amistad, but they are invited to relate to it's main character. It is important for students to read books that have a historical background about mistreatments of others and how conflicts can be resolved without violent measures. This book would be a great tie-in for a unit on slavery. When reading about slavery in history texts, it is sometimes hard for students to visualize the events being discussed or attach a human emotion to the event. I believe the illustrations in this book provide that for the students.

Average customer rating:

Maravilloso

Amistad Con Dios
Neale Donald Walsch
Manufacturer: Grijalbo
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Recreating Your Self

ASIN: 9700512606

Customer Reviews:

Maravilloso.......2007-01-19

Una joya de libro. Tan bueno como los anteriores de Conversaciones con Dios. Aporta cosas nuevas, y Dios sigue siendo tan amoroso y sanador como siempre. Merece la pena leerlo varias veces. Es una gran ayuda en este mundo tan dificil.

Mutiny on the Amistad: The Saga of a Slave Revolt and Its Impact on American Abolition, Law, and Diplomacy

Average customer rating:

Really Poor!
Great story robbed of its impact
Dry, but informative.
too long!
Exceptional historical account of the Amistad.

Mutiny on the Amistad: The Saga of a Slave Revolt and Its Impact on American Abolition, Law, and Diplomacy
Howard Jones
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0195038290

Book Description

This volume presents the first full-scale treatment of the only instance in history where African blacks, seized by slave dealers, won their freedom and returned home. Jones describes how, in 1839, Joseph Cinque led a revolt on the Spanish slave ship, the Amistad, in the Caribbean. The seizure of the ship by an American naval vessel near Montauk, Long Island, the arrest of the Africans in Connecticut, and the Spanish protest against the violation of their property rights created an international controversy. The Amistad affair united Lewis Tappan and other abolitionists who put the "law of nature" on trial in the United States by their refusal to accept a legal system that claimed to dispense justice while permitting artificial distinctions based on race or color. The mutiny resulted in a trial before the U.S. Supreme Court that pitted former President John Quincy Adams against the federal government. Jones vividly recaptures this compelling drama--the most famous slavery case before Dred Scott--that climaxed in the court's ruling to free the captives and allow them to return to Africa.

Customer Reviews:

Really Poor!.......2005-01-10

Pay close attention to the other reviewer's comments. This IS one dry, boring book. And that is a shame because this event is a signal event in the course of our Nation's history. This 1839 mutiny by black Africans aboard a Spanish slave ship resulted in a trial before the US Supreme Court that pitted former President John Quincy Adams, who came out of retirement to defend the Africans, against the federal government. Importantly, this trial was held during the time in which the Gag Rule was in effect within the United States Congress, i.e., it was illegal to simply speak about slavery within Congress.

It is a shame that this, the most famous and compelling slavery case before Dred Scott, is dealt with so poorly in this book

Great story robbed of its impact.......2004-02-17

Mutiny on the Amistad: The Saga of a Slave Revolt and Its Impact on American Abolition, Law, and Diplomacy by Howard Jones.

In July 1839, a group of Africans that had been illegally imported into Cuba used violence to take over the Amistad while it was transporting them from Havana to Puerto Príncipe. In August, the Amistad and the Africans were seized off Long Island. These events set off a judicial, legislative, and diplomatic battle that would not be completely resolved until the Civil War ended slavery in the United States. Mutiny on the Amistad looks at the laws, issues, and people involved in this landmark case.

The key questions are: Who has jurisdiction over the case? Are the Africans legally slaves? If so, who has the rights to them? Are they "salvage," like the Amistad? Will the case worsen the relations with Spain and strengthen Great Britain's claims in Cuba? Will it become the catalyst the abolitionists need to give them and their cause credibility with the northern public? And how will Martin Van Buren's administration deal with such a controversial case in a re-election year?

While the case attracted the attention of abolitionists like Arthur and Lewis Tappan and John Quincy Adams; the administration of Martin Van Buren and even those of some of his successors; and several governments, including those of Spain and Great Britain, Jones's repetitive treatment of the story robs it of much of its drama. For example, he makes the declarative statement that the Van Buren administration's focus was solely on re-election and ensuring the Amistad case did not interfere with that objective more than a dozen times. Some of the primary source quotes do not seem well selected to expand upon the contemporary view; in too many cases, quotes consist of one or two words, such as "gross injustice," that are too out of context or are such common expressions that they become meaningless. The best quotes come, not from the case or the participants, but from the various southern, northern, and abolitionist publications; these headlines reveal contemporary perceptions, beliefs, and biases. As for the participants, the only voice that seems to express any passion is that of John Quincy Adams, who is clearly emotional about the abolitionist cause.

In the meantime, the voices of Joseph Cinqué and the rest of the Africans-the subjects of the entire controversy-are heard only rarely, primarily through letters to the abolitionists complaining about the poor conditions they are subjected to in prison. It is not clear if this is because their testimony was generally deemed irrelevant (they seldom speak for themselves) or if their feelings and thoughts are poorly documented because of the language and literacy barriers they initially face. Jones does try to interject them periodically, but during the long passages in which they are missing the reader feels as though the case has become an exercise in legal argument without victims.

Ultimately, it is not clear what the Amistad case accomplished. For many in the north, Cinqué and the other Africans are objects of both curiosity and sympathy, but it is not apparent that the Amistad case significantly advanced the cause of abolition-in itself an irony since Cinqué and company were never legally slaves (one point that the courts and even the district attorney agree upon). Jones asserts that the case raised public awareness of the conflict between natural law (such as man's right to freedom and to kill to obtain it) and positive law (such as that enabling slavery and preventing slaves from rebelling). The scope of Jones's research and quotations, save those from newspapers, does not support this; there is little presented to show that the case was discussed every day in ballrooms, parlors, and bars or that the general public's perception was permanently altered. What is clear, however, is the racism that is prevalent throughout. Even some of the abolitionists, most of whom are spiritual leaders who find slavery an abomination against God, do not consider Africans their equals.

The facts of the case are all here, along with much of the background. Some of the conclusions seem incomplete. Throughout, one gets the impression this could have been a shorter, more succinct, and, more importantly, a more dramatic and tightly argued book had Jones or his editor cut the repetitions, redundancies, and minutiae and focused on a more cohesive discussion of the relevant specifics of the case and its effects on the public, the U.S. government, and policy. As it is, in Jones's hands this case appears less interesting and less important historically than it probably was, and even the source of all this, Cinqué and his comrades, lose their three-dimensionality-their humanity, as it were. If you are interested in the Amistad case and in the story of the abolitionist movement, this is probably a must-read-but don't stop here.

Diane L. Schirf, 16 February 2004.

Dry, but informative........2000-05-08

I saw the movie, and it performed its function well: it piqued my interest. But, of course, being a dramatization, it was not bound by little things like facts; it took the basic story, and made it as interesting and dramatic as possible.

This caused me to develop an interest in the subject, and a curiosity as to what the actual truth of the story was, and this book served admirably to answer that question.

If you're interested in an entertaining story that has drama, characterization, and closure, see the movie. But if you're interested in historical facts, and literal truth rather than symbolic truth, read this book.

too long!.......2000-04-14

The book was great in explaining everything but things were too repetitive. The point could have gotten across through a much shorter version

Exceptional historical account of the Amistad........1999-01-07

Mutiny on the Amistad by Dr. Howard Jones is an exceptional piece of historical research. For the reader who wishes to read an exceptional historical treatise buy the book. One fully comprehends the the roles of Spain, England, the United States and the cruelty of the slave trade. After reading this book one can comprehend how race initially was and still is a significant factor in the cultural life and politics of the United States. Dr. Jones is to be congratulated for a balance historical presentation and insightful view of cultural history as well...if you are seriously interested in the events of the Amistad and the world that created this incident, you will greatly appreciate Dr. Jones' scholarship. I am grateful that a serious historian has given us such a fine account of the Amistad.

My Pal, Victor/Mi amigo, Victor (Bilingual)

Average customer rating:

Bilingual/Disabilities
My Pal, Victor/Mi amigo, Victor
Good bi-lingual book with a strong moral lesson

My Pal, Victor/Mi amigo, Victor (Bilingual)
Diane Gonzales Bertrand
Manufacturer: Raven Tree Press C/O Delta
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Library Binding

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ASIN: 0972019294

Book Description

My Pal, Victor / Mi amigo, Víctor is a story that embodies an artistic expression of the disability experience for children and adolescent audiences. It captures the essence of true friendship and portrays a trustworthy message that gives positive reinforcement for those living with disabilities.

In the story, two young boys experience carefree camaraderie despite one boy's disability. Victor tells heart-booming ghost stories, claps the loudest at Dominic's baseball games, and performs a fabulous floating frog stroke. Fun and friendship overpower physical limitations.

Dominic and Victor enjoy the same adventures as many children—sleepovers, amusement parks, baseball, and simply "hanging out." Kids will see themselves in these engaging and often comical everyday activities. The fact that Victor is in a wheelchair doesn't come into play until the last page when Victor is shown in his chair. Even then, it's not a consideration as Dominic quips, "But, the most important thing about my pal, Victor, is that he likes me just the way I am."

Engaging illustrations capture the realistic and the fantasy world in this touching tale. A new twist on what makes friendship work. Physical conditions cannot, and do not, hinder the abiding friendship portrayed in this story. Bilingual children's picture book. Full text translation in English and Spanish. Key word vocabulary page in English and Spanish. Winner of ALA's Schneider Family Award

Selected for inclusion on the New York Suggested Reading List

Customer Reviews:

Bilingual/Disabilities.......2006-04-04

Synopsis: Dominic tells about all the things he does with his pal Victor and he portrays Victor to be a great friend. The two boys, Dominic and Victor do lots of fun things together. They look up at the clouds and Victor makes up stories about them. Victor says that they look like dragons, rocket ships and the pyramids in Mexico. He says, "My Pal Victor, tells great jokes." For example one of Victor's jokes was "If you mix a parrot and a pickle together what do you get?" Answer: "A pickle who wants a cracker." Victor goes to Dominic's baseball games to cheer for him. The boys go swimming. Victor tells scary ghost stories. Dominic tells how they love to ride rollercoasters together. Most importantly, Victor likes Dominic just the way Dominic is.

Evaluation: This story is realistic contemporary fiction. It is written in both Spanish and English. On every page English is on the top and Spanish is underneath it. Dominic and Victor are both Hispanic. Victor is handicapped. He's in a wheelchair. However, the reader does not see his wheelchair in the illustrations until the last page, and nothing about him being handicapped or different is in the text. Bertrand portrays Victor as a child who can do everything any child can do. He can even swim! The jokes in the story are slightly lame, but to children they may be funny. The answers to the jokes can be found on the last page along with vocabulary translated from English to Spanish. The theme is different from many other books with handicapped children in them being the fact that most books are from the perspective that the handicapped child is happy to be accepted whereas in this book the non-handicapped person is happy to be accepted just the way he is by a handicapped person. My Pal, VICTOR won the Schneider Family Book Award in 2005.

My Pal, Victor/Mi amigo, Victor.......2004-09-16

This is a simple story that any child can relate to. The author takes two boys through many fun experiences, emphasizing that the two are having fun and enjoying one another. By the end of the story, Victor's obvious difference doesn't seem to matter at all. The affirmation at the end doesn't smack of a "moral" that would otherwise make it too sweet.

Good bi-lingual book with a strong moral lesson.......2004-06-24

"My Pal Victor" is a great children's book that also teaches some beginning Latin American Spanish vocablulary and accepting others for who they are. Each page of the book has the text printed in both English and Spanish so it is easy to associate the English and Spanish words. The illustrations are colorful and will easily hold the interest of a young reader. The story line shows the strong friendship between Victor and Dominic.

Book Description

In 1839, there was a rebellion on the slave ship Amistad. In a bloody struggle, the African captives aboard rebelled against their kidnappers and declared mutiny. While trying to sail the ship home, the Africans accidentally ended up in New York. They were later imprisoned and put on trial for murder. Award-winning author Walter Dean Myers's probing look at this triumph over indignity and injustice shows the events' effect on the country America has become.

"With characteristic scholarship, clarity, insight, and compassion, Myers presents readers with the facts and the moral and historical significance of the Amistad episode." (School Library Journal)

Customer Reviews:

Amistad, a huge historic event.......2005-09-05

Amistad shows what happended in the 1800's based on slavery with Africans who were kidnaped by white people who did not spoke thier language, how the fed them almost like dogs, how the crew treated the African women, how they decided who died and who lived and the people who died throw them of the boat, it was awful, how people bought slaves under the table around the world.

Eventhough I only saw the movie it made me understand that Africans and colored people at that time where treated like animals, they didn't have rights as human beings and white people were the "Kings or Gods" who rule the world, they decided they where the superior race or something like that.

In my opinion this movie or book would be helpful for future generations so that humanity doesn't repeat this errors that where commited in the past to make them understand that that is not right, eventhough some people doesn't care about religion to teach them that God doesn't care about race he cares about us human beings, on what we do and whom we love, and even with technology we don't rule the world because we don't really have the power. Just because a contry has the money of the world doesen't mean we rule other contries or make a club whom their objective is beating other people just because they are not the same as them the only one who judge us is God and God alone.

Thje Book is Better Than the Movie.......2000-09-21

This book was turned into a movie, but like most books, it's better than the movie. It's hard to imagine that such things happened, but they really did. I'd liek to learn more about the people on the ship and thier lives once they got home and to freedom

Amistad - Give Us Free.......2000-06-23

Myers, Walter Dean (1998) Amistad: A Long Road to Freedom. New York: Dutton Children's Books and DreamWorks. 99pgs. ISBN: 0-525-45970-7. Chapter and Picture Book. Primary Topics: Slavery, Abolitionism, US Political, Legal History; Ethnicity, Morality, Diversity. Young Adult -- Grade 5-9.

This book is a marvelously drawn narrative history of the Amistad saga that begins with a contextual portrait of the Atlantic slave trade which was by 1808 illegal, though still widely practiced as this case shows. Myers traces the dramatic journey of Sengbe, a rice farmer in Mani and the future leader of the ship-board revolt from his capture by other Africans and sale to a Spanish slave-trader to the horrible Middle Passage to Cuba and the eventual landing on Long Island and capture by US Navy personal. It is in New London and New Haven, Connecticut that this case begins a near three-year legal, moral, and political conflict that touched the United States profoundly at the time and for years afterwards. Myers describes and analyzes in minute yet engrossing detail the legal battle waged between the forces of slavery and the forces of abolition in this country while never losing sight of the fascinating personalities involved. Using historic maps, engravings, and photographs, and displaying some painstaking research into primary sources (without source notes), Myers makes the case come alive and provides an engaging companion work to Spielberg's motion picture (DreamWorks owns part of the copyright), going beyond the time scope of the movie to follow many of the characters after their victorious Supreme Court case to an abolitionist community in Connecticut and eventually home to Africa. One of Africans even returned again to America to attend college!

I have no reservation using this book in a middle school or high school history class. It discusses the specific historical context in clear language that would serve as either a good introduction to the issues of slavery and abolitionism for middle school students or as a refresher and supplement for high school students of US history. It is written in a narrative style that is compelling and engaging for teens (and adults), but does not disengage when it pauses for analytical treatment of complex political or legal issues. Rather, Myers discusses many of these complex issues (especially the legal ones) in ways that simplify but do not reduce the contradictory moral issues at the heart of the story. Thus the built in tension of the story is preserved. I was compelled to read on even though I knew the ending.

Myers begins with a brief overview of the importation of slaves into the United States, describing the contradictions of the American Revolution regarding slaves and the Constitutional restriction of importing slaves into the US after 1808 as well as the international restrictions in place by that time. Britain outlawed slavery in 1787 and subsequently made treaties with other countries over the issue including one with Spain in 1817 that made exportation of slaves from Africa illegal. But because slavery itself was legal in both the US and the Spanish colonies, Myers makes clear that there was still a great deal of illegal slave trading going on. He even allows for the possibility that the slave cargo of the Amistad that revolted three days out of Havana (ostensibly bound for Puerto Principe in south-east Cuba) was in fact destined for the Carolinas to provide the rice plantations with skilled agricultural workers.

In a section discussing the economic costs and prices of boats, slaves, and provisions, Myers shows that the economic incentives were high enough to interest certain types of businessmen into risking defiance of international law by continuing the brutal enslavement of West Africans and their forced transportation to the Americas. He says, in fact, that the highest prices for young, strong laborers were being paid in the United States. These facts alone provide much fodder for classroom discussions into the nature of slavery as an economic system and lend support for critical examination of this still controversial topic and its legacies.

Myers' book has a cast of dozens of interesting historical personalities, major and minor, famous and infamous. Among the famous and infamous were John Quincy Adams (who argued on behalf of the Africans to the Supreme Court) and Roger Tawney (sitting on that Court) who would later author the Dred Scott decision. The roles and positions of many abolitionists involved in the case are described from Robert Purvis and Rev. James W.C. Pennington to William Lloyd Garrison and Lewis Tappan. In examining the abolitionist movement as it publicized and championed the Amistad captives from the moment of their capture to their eventual return to Africa, Myers depicts a diverse movement of reformers and radicals, some of whom were not opposed to using the Africans for political ends beyond their own personal fates, whether it was proselytizing Christianity or attempting to set legal precedents in their quest to reform slavery out of existence. Again to Myers credit, he shows them as they were historically in all their contradictions.

As Myers writes towards the end of the book, "Perhaps the most important aspect of the efforts of Lewis Tappan, Austin F. Williams, Joshua Leavitt, the other abolitionists, as well as the attorneys involved was that they allowed the world to see the Africans as human beings." Likewise, he describes in personalizing, humanizing detail, the principle protagonists of this historic drama: Sengbe, Kali, Kague, Margru, Foone, Burna, and others, who by their words, actions, and prayers demanded and pleaded and fought to be "given free."

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If We Must Die: Shipboard Insurrections in the Era of the Atlantic Slave Trade (Antislavery, Abolition, and the Atlantic World)
Eric Robert Taylor
Manufacturer: Louisiana State University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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The Urban South And The Coming Of The Civil War

Saltwater Slavery: A Middle Passage from Africa to American Diaspora

Plantation Enterprise in Colonial South Carolina

West from Appomattox: The Reconstruction of America after the Civil War

In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1626-1863 (Historical Studies of Urban America)

ASIN: 0807131814

Book Description

If We Must Die is the first book to focus on slave resistance that occurred aboard ships—at anchor, along the African coast, during the Middle Passage, and beyond. Challenging the presumption that such resistance was infrequent and insignificant, Eric Robert Taylor demonstrates conclusively that shipboard insurrections affected slave traders every step of the way throughout the trade's long history. The uprisings helped to define, limit, and ultimately end the traffic in African slaves, and they stand as important predecessors to the many revolts that subsequently occurred in the plantation societies of the Americas. Taylor presents evidence of nearly five hundred shipboard rebellions, often in amazing detail. He shows that slaves used whatever they could get their hands on to wage attacks, which frequently occurred at night or during scheduled routines such as meals. Women and children sometimes played pivotal roles because of their privileged positions or unusual mobility onboard. One key element in a successful plot was surprise. Most revolts were crushed quickly, but others raged on for hours, days, or weeks. Occasionally the Africans captured the vessel and returned themselves to freedom. Taylor explores a thorough range of issues, including aid from other ships, punishment of slave rebels, and treatment of sailors captured by the Africans. Insurrections on board, he finds, commonly shared similar characteristics regardless of the slaves' or captors' region or nation of origin. His scrutiny of a second wave of shipboard revolts that occurred during the domestic and international slave trade within the Americas suggests that the tactics employed in transatlantic voyage insurrections were passed on to later generations of slaves. If We Must Die enlarges the historical view of slave resistance, revealing a continuum of rebellions that spanned the Atlantic as well as the centuries. Shipboard insurrections formed a surprisingly influential and successful part of that continuum, and their history can no longer be overlooked. AUTHOR BIO: Eric Robert Taylor holds postgraduate degrees in history and African American Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles. He is a freelance television producer and lives in Los Angeles.

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Amistad: An opera in two acts
Anthony Davis
Manufacturer: Lyric Opera of Chicago]
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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ASIN: B0006QQHUA

Toni Morrison: Critical Perspective Past And Present (Amistad Literary Series)

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Toni Morrison: Critical Perspective Past And Present (Amistad Literary Series)
Henry L. Gates
Manufacturer: Amistad
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1567430252

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A LESSON ON HUMAN NATURE
Amistad
Awesome
Everyman's Book
Amistad is Great

Amistad
Joyce Annette Barnes
Manufacturer: Puffin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0140390634

Book Description

Based on the true story of the 1839 mutiny on board the Spanish slave ship, Amistad, here is the frightening sequence of events that led fifty-three young men and women - and one young nation - to seek freedom and justice for all people. Amistad is the story of Cinque, the illegally enslaved son of a Mende chief who led an uprising full of fury and courage. It is also the story of John Quincy Adams, the former American president, who reluctantly heeded the call to justice and defended Cinque in a Supreme Court trial that would alter the nation's history. And it is the story of men and women searching to find truth and to uphold the basic tenets of the American Constitution. Brilliantly narrated by award-winning novelist Alexs Pate, Amistad celebrates the human spirit's profound determination to fight, hope, and to be free. Visit the Amistad book site! A junior novelization is also available for young adults.

Customer Reviews:

A LESSON ON HUMAN NATURE.......2004-03-11

I've recently been reading the book Amistad . I think that it is a good book. I think that people should try reading it some time. It would be a good experience for them, and I think that if people try reading this book it would teach them a lesson on human nature

If we all treated each other like they did on the book, we would be doomed and like I learned in one of my classes an eye for eye would make the whole world blind
While I hope you all try reading it some time in your life.

Amistad.......2004-03-11

I recently have read the book Amistad. It is a very good book, because it's about slavery times. How the slaves felt, and how is from there point of view. I was very impressed with this book, about a young mans life. In how he lived before slavery, and then during his time in slavery. He finds a nail out of the boat. He pry's it lose and free all the slaves, by braking the chains. They take over ship from the Spaniards. Trying to get back to Africa. But get stopped by navy. I like this book because they join together to brake out of there chains.

Awesome.......2003-07-27

There have been lot of books written on the abolishment of Slavery in United States. But this book is unique in that it is not a mere putting down of facts which piled on for years. Through the characters the author has nicely portrayed the different attitudes and perception that people had about slavery and its abolishment. A Very nice book wherein you feel the characters and get involved in more than one way.

Everyman's Book.......2002-11-13

It's shocking to discover how much of real American history gets glossed over in schools. What's the point of teaching history at all if it's edited? At that point it might as well be folk tales, interesting stories lacking any real facts. Alexs Pate's version of the events surrounding the slave ship La Amistad are easy to follow thanks to his simple, direct writing style and unique ability to describe much in a few words. While a "fictionalized" account of true events, the story is nonetheless riveting and heartwrenching, astounding and sickening to behold. I am saddened and even a little angry I have so little knowledge of how the vast majority of Africans found their way to America and the truth of how my ancestors may have considered and treated them. The author does a fine job of remaining mostly neutral on the topic himself, letting the story unfold and almost tell itself. While some Africans had it a little better than others, during pre-Civil War days and even in some cases still today, no black man was ever truly free. Amistad is a brilliant book about suffering and the strength it may bring, about how hope may prevail under the direst of circumstances, about how mistakes can save lives and doing "the right thing" might end them. A quick, powerful read anyone of any color or belief may enjoy. An excellent book for anyone readying to delve into the truth of the past instead of blandly accepting some outdated school textbook of it. Masterpiece.

Amistad is Great.......2000-10-09

This was a great book. i had to read it for a book report. To tell you the truth I hate reading. This is the first time I read the whole book for a book report, it had me hooked. Now I get to see the movie. But, I understood the wording in the book, and It's just a good book the read. And I recommend it for all age groups.

Langston Hughes: Critical Perspectives Past And Present (Amistad Literary Series)

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Indepth Study of Genius!!

Langston Hughes: Critical Perspectives Past And Present (Amistad Literary Series)
Henry L. Gates
Manufacturer: Amistad
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1567430295

Book Description

James Langston Hughes

(1902 -- 1967)

With a career that spanned the Harlem Renaissance of the twenties and Black Arts movement of the sixties, Langston Hughes was the most prolific Black poet of his era. Between 1926, when he published his pioneering The Weary Blues, to 1967, the year of his death, when he published The Panther and the Lash, Hughes would write sixteen books of poems, two novels, seven collections of short stories, two autobiographies, five works of nonfiction, and nine children's books; he would edit nine anthologies of poetry, folklore, short fiction, and humor. He also translated Jaques Roumain, NicolÁs GuillÉn, Gabriela Mistral, Federico Garcia Lorca, and write at least thirty plays. It is not surprising that Hughes was known, variously, as "Shakespeare in Harlem" and as the "poet laureate of the American Negro."

-- from the Preface by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Customer Reviews:

Indepth Study of Genius!!.......2005-09-01

LANGSTON HUGHES: CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES PAST AND PRESENT by Henry
Louis Gates, Jr. and al, is part of the Amistad Literary Series on African Americans authors of noted literary fame and skill. As the title suggest, this particular installment discusses the some of the work of Langston Hughes.

The book is divided into to sections, excluding the introduction. The first section cover contemporary reviews giving during Hughes' lifetime. As the introduction notes, the reviews are "drawn from magazines, journals, and newspapers from the mainstream and African American press." Noted reviewers include the main rival of Hughes during the heyday of the Harlem Renaissance, Countee Cullen, and one of the Renaissance's midwives, Jessie Fauset, both reviewing the WEARY BLUES. Cullen criticizes Hughes on being to much a Negro poet instead of just a poet in the Euro-centric sense and its attending influences. Cullen does offer Hughes praise here and there, but for the most part his taste contrasts sharply with Hughes resolutely Afro-centric/racial pride that would form the basis of a lifetime of the bulk of work composed by Hughes despite his being well read in the works of European authors in additon to those of African decent. Reviews of Hughes work to follow are by Sterling Brown, Richard Wright, J. Saunders Redding, Carl Van Vechten, and other lesser known figures lost to history. Sherwood Anderson reviews THE WAYS OF WHITE FOLKS where he feels Hughes may have
been a little to harsh in his depiction of white folks. Considering the all to often negative depiction of black folks in the various arts of the day, at lease Hughes put a more human
face on white folks, an act seldom accorded to black folks in literature by whites of that same time frame. James Baldwin provides the most caustic review of Hughes by way of Hughes SELECTED POEMS. The review hurt and angered Hughes to the point that Hughes never really liked Baldwin to much again. Later in Baldwin's life, he confessed his regret over his review and attested to Hughes' genius.

The second half of the book covers essays written by scholars on Hughes' varied pieces of work. The essays are comprehensive and well written to the point that a simple review cannot do them justice. Instead, one must simply take the time to read each one or each one of interest to him or her. There are ten essays in all of varying length. For me, three interesting ones were those by Arnold Rampersad, Steven Tracy, Raymond Smith, and
Maryemma Graham. Rampersad cites FINE CLOTHES TO THE JEW as representing Hughes at his very best and one never really equaled again by him. Steven Tracy covers the blues influence on the work of Hughes in-depth. Raymond Smith looks at aspects of the life of Hughes in relation to his work. Of note is the fact that Langston Hughes has more in common with blacks of the post integration period and its realities because of the "somewhat" integrated high school he attended as a teenager. Also, mention is made of Hughes steadfast racial pride, the solidarity despite the contrast in realities of blood history between the average African American to the pure blooded African, and Hughes opinion of whites in general, i.e. some being okay (covered in Rampersad's LIFE OF HUGHES Vol. 2.). Maryemma Graham argues that by focusing on the black working class in his literature, Hughes transcended racial subject matter specifically to become a social/proletarian artist in the universal sense. Moreover, Hughes did not adhere to strict socialist doctrine. Rather, he imbued and formed it around the realities of the African American experience to reach this universality. This significant and important characteristic is often ignored or forgotten when discussing the work of Langston Hughes, both poetry and stories, during the 1930s and 40s. As it otherwise existed, the predominantly white dominated left of his day was marred by a degree on general racism in the U.S. that largely ignored or failed to consider the black experience.

This book is quick to praise Arnold Rampersad's two definitive biographies of Langston Hughes. Arnold Rampersad's extremely exhaustive research is represented here in CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES making this and excellent companion to the biographies for anyone able and willing to take time to read this book along side Rampersad's biographies.

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