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How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America
Top of the pile
93
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
100/100Critics
81/100Scholars
97/100Author:
Clint Smith
Publisher:
Little, Brown and Company
Date:
June 1, 2021
Beginning in his hometown of New Orleans, Clint Smith leads the reader on a tour of monuments and landmarksâthose that are honest about the past and those that are notâthat offer an intergenerational story of how slavery has been central in shaping our nationâs collective history, and ourselves.
What The Reviewers Say
Gregarious, learned and engagingly open-minded, the book meets America where it is on the subject — which is to say, all over the place.
It is for these moments, seemingly small, that Smith reserves the hush of his own surprise and learning. Rarely in a book of this scope does one find such careful reconstruction and attention to rhetoric.
In rich, evocative language, Smith synthesizes first hand research, textual sources, and interviews as he weaves a lyrical and precise tapestry of the truth of America's past that many would like to continue to hide.
... traces, in a sustained and pragmatic way, crucial sites in our historical narrative, and exposes the bitter experiences that, as Americans, we have long sought to suppress.
