teriboop's review
4.0
This book is the culmination of a career's worth of work and research by David W. Blight on Frederick Douglass' life. From Douglass' first memories as a slave on the Auld plantation through his death, Blight tells the story of the African-American abolitionist that worked tirelessly to help free people of bondage, advocate for the end of slavery, and work toward civil rights and franchisement of African-Americans.
Douglass could not remember much about his mother or his family, he never knew his father or his true birth date. He was tortured as a slave and eventually became a fugitive on the loose. He met and married Anna and began his own family as he began to advocate for emancipation through lectures and writings. To avoid recapture, Douglass left his family behind to run the lecture circuit in Europe until his freedom could be bought. He sparked a professional friendship with President Abraham Lincoln, to influence his understanding of slavery and civil rights for African-Americans. He watched his sons go off to war in the fight against slavery and continued on the lecture circuit during Reconstruction to argue for the right to vote for all men regardless of color.
Throughout his married life, Douglass became the patriarch of a large family who would forever burden him financially, causing Douglass to never retire. His life seemed to have constant ups and downs riddled with death and monetary woes. As much as he was admired for his work in the abolition movement, he was also hated by his enemies who fought against civil rights. His words and works live on and still resonant today as racial issues are still at the forefront of our nation's mind.
This book is very well researched and Douglass' life is meticulously chronicled by Blight. It is easy to understand why this book earned the Pulitzer Prize.
Douglass could not remember much about his mother or his family, he never knew his father or his true birth date. He was tortured as a slave and eventually became a fugitive on the loose. He met and married Anna and began his own family as he began to advocate for emancipation through lectures and writings. To avoid recapture, Douglass left his family behind to run the lecture circuit in Europe until his freedom could be bought. He sparked a professional friendship with President Abraham Lincoln, to influence his understanding of slavery and civil rights for African-Americans. He watched his sons go off to war in the fight against slavery and continued on the lecture circuit during Reconstruction to argue for the right to vote for all men regardless of color.
Throughout his married life, Douglass became the patriarch of a large family who would forever burden him financially, causing Douglass to never retire. His life seemed to have constant ups and downs riddled with death and monetary woes. As much as he was admired for his work in the abolition movement, he was also hated by his enemies who fought against civil rights. His words and works live on and still resonant today as racial issues are still at the forefront of our nation's mind.
This book is very well researched and Douglass' life is meticulously chronicled by Blight. It is easy to understand why this book earned the Pulitzer Prize.
laurengrubbsshaney's review against another edition
challenging
informative
inspiring
slow-paced
4.0
bradley_pough's review against another edition
3.0
I found this book more difficult than I thought I would, and I'm still trying to parse out why. Nearly everyone else I've encountered who has read this book has raved about it, which obviously causes me to question whether, after nearly 800 pages, I've just missed something fundamental. All of that, I guess, is to say you should take this review with a hefty grain of salt. Your mileage may vary.
My working hypothesis for why this one just didn't jump off the page for me is that I suspect it is difficult to write a fresh biography of someone who has written such an iconic autobiography. Douglass spent most of his adult life curating his story across three volumes of autobiographies, each one slightly different. To ignore those books would be to ignore a significant aspect of Douglass's life, but to dwell on them in what purports to be a new biography risks subordinating your analysis of the subject's life to his own. I'm honestly not sure Blight always struck the right. balance. At times, especially early on, it felt a bit like Blight was writing an outstanding book review on Douglass's autobiographies as opposed to something truly novel. He would often filter his analysis of Douglass's life through Douglass's own words on the subject, which gave the book a bit of a recursive feel.
This point is compounded by the fact that Douglass, unlike many biographical subjects, was not, first and foremost, a doer. He was an analyzer; one of his generation's great journalists, philosophers, and synthesizers. Through his pen the 19th century was given coherence and meaning. His "takes" still shape the way we think about slavery, the civil war, and reconstruction. While his achievements are undeniably remarkable, the storyteller's story isn't always the most scintillating read. He didn't ride into battle, pass new laws, or create the next great technological innovation. Instead, his transformative contributions to society were his ideas, which, I suppose, I'd just rather read in his own words.
Additionally, while I thought a lot of Blight's analysis -- both on Douglass' and the society that created him -- was subordinated to Douglass's own analysis on those topics, Blight's voice came through loud and clear. And sometimes, it was a bit much. I had never read any David Blight until I picked up this book, so I wasn't quite ready for all of the prophetic language, biblical allusions, and mini-elegies that peppered the book. In arguing for Douglass's place in this prophetic tradition, it sometimes seemed like Blight was auditioning for a spot himself. While I guess that's his prerogative (it is his book), it was a jarring change after reading so much Chernow, whose voice is almost always secondary to the story that he's telling.
With that said, I did enjoy many aspects of this book. As someone who hasn't read Douglass's autobiography, many of these stories were still new and exciting for me. I also loved the way Blight framed the almost parasitic relationship between the slaveholder's humanity and that of the enslaved. For the slaveholder to be able to justify their participation in such a vile institution they had to develop all of these systems that deconstructed the humanity of the enslaved African Americans. Don't teach them to read. Don't let them marry. Rip apart their families. Don't let them name themselves. Each of these tactics served to destabilize the enslaved such that whites could say, without a hint of embarrassment, that slavery was in the slave's best interest. As I'm writing this I'm realizing this seems like such a basic point, but the way Blight was able to articulate it throughout the first half of the book really drove the point home for me in a way no one had to this point.
Another unexpected gem in this book were the brutally honest portrayals of some of history's great heroes. While I won't go into detail on any of these stories so as to not spoil it for future readers, I appreciated that Blight did not pull any punches with his less-than-glamorous descriptions of Lincoln, Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. The stories we tell ourselves about these great Americans have been scrubbed and sanitized such that we lose sight of their often flawed humanity. I think recognizing that these were real people with real foibles is critical if we are ever going to call ourselves to achieve similarly great things in our own time. Blight seems to appreciate that.
In sum, while this wasn't the best biography I've read recently, I would still certainly recommend it to history buffs looking for a new companion. It was a bit of slog, but probably worth it in the end.
My working hypothesis for why this one just didn't jump off the page for me is that I suspect it is difficult to write a fresh biography of someone who has written such an iconic autobiography. Douglass spent most of his adult life curating his story across three volumes of autobiographies, each one slightly different. To ignore those books would be to ignore a significant aspect of Douglass's life, but to dwell on them in what purports to be a new biography risks subordinating your analysis of the subject's life to his own. I'm honestly not sure Blight always struck the right. balance. At times, especially early on, it felt a bit like Blight was writing an outstanding book review on Douglass's autobiographies as opposed to something truly novel. He would often filter his analysis of Douglass's life through Douglass's own words on the subject, which gave the book a bit of a recursive feel.
This point is compounded by the fact that Douglass, unlike many biographical subjects, was not, first and foremost, a doer. He was an analyzer; one of his generation's great journalists, philosophers, and synthesizers. Through his pen the 19th century was given coherence and meaning. His "takes" still shape the way we think about slavery, the civil war, and reconstruction. While his achievements are undeniably remarkable, the storyteller's story isn't always the most scintillating read. He didn't ride into battle, pass new laws, or create the next great technological innovation. Instead, his transformative contributions to society were his ideas, which, I suppose, I'd just rather read in his own words.
Additionally, while I thought a lot of Blight's analysis -- both on Douglass' and the society that created him -- was subordinated to Douglass's own analysis on those topics, Blight's voice came through loud and clear. And sometimes, it was a bit much. I had never read any David Blight until I picked up this book, so I wasn't quite ready for all of the prophetic language, biblical allusions, and mini-elegies that peppered the book. In arguing for Douglass's place in this prophetic tradition, it sometimes seemed like Blight was auditioning for a spot himself. While I guess that's his prerogative (it is his book), it was a jarring change after reading so much Chernow, whose voice is almost always secondary to the story that he's telling.
With that said, I did enjoy many aspects of this book. As someone who hasn't read Douglass's autobiography, many of these stories were still new and exciting for me. I also loved the way Blight framed the almost parasitic relationship between the slaveholder's humanity and that of the enslaved. For the slaveholder to be able to justify their participation in such a vile institution they had to develop all of these systems that deconstructed the humanity of the enslaved African Americans. Don't teach them to read. Don't let them marry. Rip apart their families. Don't let them name themselves. Each of these tactics served to destabilize the enslaved such that whites could say, without a hint of embarrassment, that slavery was in the slave's best interest. As I'm writing this I'm realizing this seems like such a basic point, but the way Blight was able to articulate it throughout the first half of the book really drove the point home for me in a way no one had to this point.
Another unexpected gem in this book were the brutally honest portrayals of some of history's great heroes. While I won't go into detail on any of these stories so as to not spoil it for future readers, I appreciated that Blight did not pull any punches with his less-than-glamorous descriptions of Lincoln, Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. The stories we tell ourselves about these great Americans have been scrubbed and sanitized such that we lose sight of their often flawed humanity. I think recognizing that these were real people with real foibles is critical if we are ever going to call ourselves to achieve similarly great things in our own time. Blight seems to appreciate that.
In sum, while this wasn't the best biography I've read recently, I would still certainly recommend it to history buffs looking for a new companion. It was a bit of slog, but probably worth it in the end.
cook_memorial_public_library's review against another edition
4.0
A 2018 staff favorite recommended by Rob. Check our catalog: https://encore.cooklib.org/iii/encore/search/C__SFrederick%20Douglass%20Blight__Orightresult__U?lang=eng&suite=gold
caroparr's review against another edition
4.0
A magisterial biography of an inspiring, complex man. I am so glad to have a better sense of Douglass and a better understanding of 19th century American history, some of which I remembered only very superficially. From his birth as an enslaved person on a plantation on the Eastern Shore (just an hour or two away from me), through escape, a new life in Rochester, NY, marriage and children (most of them difficult in various ways), endless speaking tours across the country and in the UK, to his final days in DC and in Haiti, I followed his trajectory with a chapter each morning. Blight obviously admires Douglass but is not afraid to show him in a dim light when it's warranted (and he clearly has no time for poor Ottilie Assing, a needy friend who longed to be more to Douglass and perhaps was). His grand tour of Europe with his second wife was charming, and it was a joy to see him enjoying a more relaxed life for a change. The chapter on his support for John Brown has led me to Tony Horwitz's [b:Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War|10900047|Midnight Rising John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War|Tony Horwitz|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1442660074l/10900047._SY75_.jpg|15816001]. And off I go, further down the rabbit hole. Thank you, David Blight!
pageglue's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.0
I’d like to preface this by saying I’m a casual reader of history, and this review reflects my personal enjoyment of the book.
The TL;DR version of it is: just read one of Frederick Douglass’s autobiographies, the first or the third one, as the second one has a very propagandist agenda and spends a lot of time moralising.
My main problem with this biography of Frederick Douglass is the same that I’ve had with history books about Malcolm X - it draws heavily from the autobiography, which I’ve already read, so I feel like I’m not learning that much from it. However, this is a 750 page book, so what fills all the extra pages? All the little details. This is fine as a comprehensive work of history and a reference book, but for me, I was pretty bored. Much of Douglass’s life is spent travelling and giving speeches, so there are just so many chapters detailing how Douglass went to this place and he gave speeches and he made friends and enemies, over and over. And that’s the true history of it all, and of course it needs to be included, but if you read his autobiography, he skips over a lot of that kind of stuff because it’s not narratively interesting. So I wouldn’t really recommend this if you’re not willing to get into the nitty gritty of his life.
If you are, however, then this book is really quite good. Blight is an excellent writer, and even though I was bored by the details, he still manages to bring his story to life, provide some of the larger historical context, and in some parts even added a little gossiper’s flare in moments of high drama. His flaws were written about sympathetically, particularly towards his somewhat abandoned and wife and family, and to the Native American populations that he was very dismissive of.
I super recommend learning about Douglass, via his own words (so beautifully written), this book, or the Obamas are producing the Netflix adaptation of it in the future. He’s incredibly inspiring and an essential figure in understanding America’s history.
The TL;DR version of it is: just read one of Frederick Douglass’s autobiographies, the first or the third one, as the second one has a very propagandist agenda and spends a lot of time moralising.
My main problem with this biography of Frederick Douglass is the same that I’ve had with history books about Malcolm X - it draws heavily from the autobiography, which I’ve already read, so I feel like I’m not learning that much from it. However, this is a 750 page book, so what fills all the extra pages? All the little details. This is fine as a comprehensive work of history and a reference book, but for me, I was pretty bored. Much of Douglass’s life is spent travelling and giving speeches, so there are just so many chapters detailing how Douglass went to this place and he gave speeches and he made friends and enemies, over and over. And that’s the true history of it all, and of course it needs to be included, but if you read his autobiography, he skips over a lot of that kind of stuff because it’s not narratively interesting. So I wouldn’t really recommend this if you’re not willing to get into the nitty gritty of his life.
If you are, however, then this book is really quite good. Blight is an excellent writer, and even though I was bored by the details, he still manages to bring his story to life, provide some of the larger historical context, and in some parts even added a little gossiper’s flare in moments of high drama. His flaws were written about sympathetically, particularly towards his somewhat abandoned and wife and family, and to the Native American populations that he was very dismissive of.
I super recommend learning about Douglass, via his own words (so beautifully written), this book, or the Obamas are producing the Netflix adaptation of it in the future. He’s incredibly inspiring and an essential figure in understanding America’s history.