Based on family documents and extensive research; this chronicle of one American family captures two centuries of African-American history through the eyes of the Maddens of Virginia.
#776435 in Books Anchor Books 2001-11-27 2001-11-27Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 8.00 x 1.10 x 5.10l; 1.54 #File Name: 0385721404628 pagesAnchor Books
Review
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful. Good Book With Too Much InfoBy BurqWhile Karen Armstrong's other works are entertainingly exhaustive in their scope; this book seems to drag under the weight of repeated contextualization between the time of the events covered and modernity. Time and again; Armstrong feels the need to tie what she is covering in every chapter with what was happening in the Middle East at the time of writing leading to what feels like a distraction from the topic at hand.Altogether a good read though. Her ability to synthesize a number of different events into a linear storyline is impressive and her commitment to the study of spirituality; deity and history has always been a favorite topic of mine. I just wonder how differently this book would have been had there been less time spent on modern events rather than what is presented.2 of 3 people found the following review helpful. gift bookBy Merry LynnThis was a gift purchase; so I can't say for sure. But the person I gave the book to; like this book and enjoyed reading it.5 of 5 people found the following review helpful. A three-sided view of the first Global Holy WarsBy Herbert L CalhounI think I picked the right time to read Karen Armstrong's book on the Crusades: after having read two others books by members of either side of this multi-century conflict. As usual she brings to the party her singular brilliance; analytic skills; her own hard won religious experience and insights; and the tenacity always not to stop until she gets to the very bottom or root causes of the things she investigates. This book is no different than her others in this respect.Right off; her overview shocked me back to my pre-Christian senses: The Crusades constituted the West's first colony. And as is commonplace today; but to our religiously blinded eyes up until now had seemed otherwise: the crusades were first a secular movement later to be couched in the cross and donned in religious garb and then turned into a full-fledged religious Jihad.The other fact that she brings out with great clarity and thus adds immensely to a visceral measure of the index of the great pain experienced by all affected -- as well as adding to the overall complexity and confusion of the crusades -- is the fact that it was not just a war waged only against Arabs infidels; who for nearly a half millennium had presided peacefully over the region without any serious outbreaks of violence among the three Abrahamic religions; but also it was a war waged against Jews who were also much hated infidels.Forty thousand Jews were summarily massacred in Jerusalem during the first crusade; where the Western crusaders went on to build churches for all the other religions. In fact; arguably; it was the crusades; even more so than Queen Isabel's expulsion of Jews from Spain some 400 years later that set the predicates for the rise of the kind of anti-Semitism that eventually led to Adolph Hitler. Hitler; we tend to forget was a "practicing Catholic;" who; no matter how loosely we may wish to used the term "practicing" in retrospect; got many of his anti-Semitic ideas from his Christian teachings.Here is the full story of the crusades; stripped of its heroic mythical adornments and minus religious propaganda and demagoguery from all the sides. It is a complex multi-century drama spread out in a sprawling way across the world's historical landscape. It is a drama that brackets much of the early history of the three Abrahamic religions as well as most of Western culture itself.One of the author's intents was to show how a straight line can be drawn from Pope Urban's call for the first crusade in November 1095; to the 911 bombing of the World Trade Center on September 11; 2001. Developing what she calls a kind of "triple vision" she gives the read a three-sided view of this multidimensional conflict.And as she probes deeply into the meaning of the crusades for the three religions; she comes up with a rather starling conclusion: that the crusades have been one of the main causes of the Middle East conflict today. As usual; she accomplishes this and her other objectives by backing them up with a tightly drawn mosaic of historical and religious facts; that is; she accomplishes her goals with a flourish. Five stars as usual.
