jinnayah's review against another edition
3.0
The 1921 A Social History of the American Negro has been referenced in many of the recent studies of the history of race relations in American, so I was very excited to see that Dover had reprinted it. It is also available for free at Project Gutenberg, which is how I ultimately read it.
The book is very dense and isn't a light read. Also, of course, it is more than 90 years old, so if you were reading it for research you'd want to cross-check against more recent sources. But even the early parts are good for providing starting points for further research in portions of history you probably haven't been exposed to.
Where the book really shines starts with Chapter 11: Social Progress 1820-1860. The book is especially valuable for its accounts of events leading up to and continuing into what is now known as the Nadir of Race Relations. It arguably was lessening by the time this was published but continued for a few decades afterwards, and this is an excellent resource that captures information in that time that was not available through more mainstream sources.
In short, not something you'd read just for entertainment, but very interesting research on race relations, especially 1860-1920.
The book is very dense and isn't a light read. Also, of course, it is more than 90 years old, so if you were reading it for research you'd want to cross-check against more recent sources. But even the early parts are good for providing starting points for further research in portions of history you probably haven't been exposed to.
Where the book really shines starts with Chapter 11: Social Progress 1820-1860. The book is especially valuable for its accounts of events leading up to and continuing into what is now known as the Nadir of Race Relations. It arguably was lessening by the time this was published but continued for a few decades afterwards, and this is an excellent resource that captures information in that time that was not available through more mainstream sources.
In short, not something you'd read just for entertainment, but very interesting research on race relations, especially 1860-1920.
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