The I Index

Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

Top of the pile

96

/100

I Index Overall Rating

Readers

99/100

Critics

96/100

Scholars

93/100

Author:

Ibram X. Kendi, Keisha N. Blain

Publisher:

One World

Date:

February 2, 2021

A 'choral history' of African Americans covering 400 years of history in the voices of 80 writers, edited by the bestselling, National Book Award-winning historian Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain. They've gathered together eighty black writers from all disciplines — historians and artists, journalists and novelists — each of whom has contributed an entry about one five-year period to create a dynamic multivoiced single-volume history of black people in America.

What The Reviewers Say

Randal Maurice Jelks,
Los Angeles Review of Books
... an inspiring book of historical observations, poetry, scholarship, and vignettes.
Colette Bancroft,
Tampa Bay Times
Whether you know only a little about Black history or a great deal, it’s a rich and rewarding book.
Lesley Williams,
Booklist
African American history is a communal quilt, crisscrossed with the stitches of elders, youth, LGBTQ folk, mothers, fathers, revolutionaries, and poets.

Kirkus
A compendium of essays and poems chronicling 400 years of Black American history.