bahareads's Reviews (1.09k)

Once again, I love the Shadow Hunter World. Cassandra Clare does such a great job crafting stories in her universe. Cordelia is a big dummy, Lucie is a huge simp, and James is a dunce. I can't wait to see what the next book brings!

Using St. Louis as a jumping-off point, Walter Johnson shows how the racial dynamics of America have helped to shape the country. Seeing the microcosm example, the reader is able to see racism, capitalism, and Imperialism has created and destroyed America. The Broken Heart of America is a labour of love, but also an apology. As a white man who lives near the St. Louis area, Johnson uses his work to show his privilege while simultaneously bringing to light how white America has prospered. I found Johnson's narrative thread to extend too far back, especially in the beginning of The Broken Heart of America . The narrative could have started farther up in the historical timeline. It was a good read but too widespread at times.

The Vanishing Half is what put <i> Passing </i> on my radar, and then the movie deal came out so I knew I had to read it. I wanted to watch the Netflix movie but first I <b> really really </b> wanted to read the book. I listened to it on audiobook thanks to the library, and I wish I had consumed it in a different format. I liked the audiobook but I think I would have understood and liked the nuances of the story better in written form. The characters were not lovable, though I understood all of their actions. The ending of <I>Passing</i> had me REELING. When the narrator ended the story on that particular scene I was freaked. The themes and entire plot of the book were *chef's kiss.* Choices affect our lives, and how we decide to portray ourselves to the world can affect the outcome of our life and happiness. 

I do love me a good CC book. The Shadow Hunter World will never not be interesting to me. I love the drama, mystery, and chaos that Clare brings to each of her narratives. I will say Cordelia felt too good at times. The characters could be too two dimensional and naive for having grown up in a world where there's danger everywhere. I'm excited for what the series has to bring

Gregory Downs’ <i>After Appomattox</i> was written to shed light on the US government’s “extraconstitutional” military occupation of the American South (Downs 246). Downs takes the reader through the ten years after The Battle of Appomattox Court House. Gregory Downs shows the reader that the demarcation of the Civil War and Reconstruction Era is not clear cut as past historiographies have made it seem. Downs situates the Civil War did not entirely end with Confederate General Lee’s surrender to Union General Grant but that the war ended when all the US troops had been recalled from throughout the US.  

The Civil War split the country apart, and military occupation tried to make it whole again. The government regulated rebellious geographic areas and treated the individuals living there like foreigners (Downs 22). Gregory Down starts off the book by showing how the military occupation tried to piece the USA back together again. Military rule throughout the United States might be a difficult concept for modern readers. Downs tries simplifying it for the reader. The slow ending of the Civil War seems like a new idea for this period of history in the historiography.   

The peeks throughout After Appomattox at the black experience during this period were the book's most intriguing parts. Downs gives the stat that 2.75 million slaves were scattered across the Confederacy as the Civil War ended (Downs 41-42). The number is staggering. Imagining trying to rebuild a broken society with these numbers. It is hard for readers to wrap their heads around. Downs has powerful words for the institution of slavery. He says, “the persistence of slavery reminds us of slavery’s resilience…Slavery would not simply die; it would have to be killed” (Downs 42). The persistence of slavery in the minds of Southerners proved that military intervention was needed for African Americans during this time. 

The idea of reconstructing a country is a curious one. I am not very familiar with immediate post-Civil War US history. The years between the Civil War and World War I in American history are hazy to me at best. I would have liked to see more about free people’s experiences and how they survived in the South from their perspective and not a top-down one. I would have wanted to learn more about occupation duty in the South. One reviewer I read and agreed with said, “Readers hoping to learn more about occupation duty in the South will encounter a few teasing details…but little else” (Adams, Journal of the Civil War Era). I will acknowledge that was not what the book was focusing on, but it would have been an excellent addition. 

As a translated work I cut The Sand Child some slack when it comes to the narrative flow of the book. The imagery and prose of The Sand Child is so magically. It weaves a great narrative in my mind around the book. The dynamics of the gender are well displayed here in The Sand Child, from the main character and her struggle with navigating who she is, to the unnamed sisters she has under her. There are a lot of pronoun shifts in the narrative as the main character navigates their way through their life, switching back and forth. The technique of telling the story by using other narrators did have me confused on whose feelings were being displayed and what was going on occasionally. This is the first time (I believe) where I've had multiple narrators for only one person's narrative. The story drew me in the first 50 pages but along the way, the intensity of the story started to wane, and the plot started to drag. It picked it back up towards the end but not enough as I would have liked.

Amy Murrell Taylor’s Embattled Freedom seeks to give a voice to enslaved African Americans in the Civil War who were refugees. Taylor focuses on three people who help illustrate the refugees’ struggle. Using a micro-historical approach, she seeks to humanize refugees presenting their particular struggles as a historical minority.

The research that went into Embattled Freedom is evident from the beginning of the book. Taylor takes the reader through the refugees’ journey. She shows the Union army was not the saving grace for enslaved, and escape from the plantation did not equal freedom. The layout of the book has three different arcs. The arcs are told through three different perspectives and locations, giving voice to the group of Civil War refugees as a whole. The term refugee is an interesting one; it humanizes enslaved people.

Amy Taylor touches on all aspects of refugees’ lives from marriage to clothing to religion. The fact of religion being the least regulated part of refugees’ lives was an interesting one. One would think to ‘civilize’ newly freed African Americans religion would be the main way. Obviously, basic needs took priority, but after that Protestant Christianity was next. Taylor shows the reader that religion and education went hand in hand. She also points out that many refugees were already educated before they came into the camps. Whether it was from clandestine learning when enslaved or self-taught education, many refugees could read, write, and spell before entering the camps.

Clothing as a source of social power is an interesting notion. The idea of “clothing [as] an important, visible marker of status and social position” shows that some things in human nature do not change. Refugees who gained new clothing were seen as shedding their life of enslavement and stepping into freedom. Women’s clothing especially displayed social freedom. Women’s clothing were “barometers of social change.” Yet clothing shows the social status of African American women were still less than their white counterparts. As US Sanitary Commission agent Maria Mann noted that refugee women, unlike white women, were not allowed to wear full skirts. The skirts issue shows that African American women were still at the bottom of the social ranking.

Removal from refugee camps and separation of black families shows the reader security did not come from being in a camp. The idea of refugee isolation helping to prevent fraternization between black women and white men was overall ridiculous. As Taylor writes “proximity had always been associated with army protection.” The separation of refugees from the main army was tricky. Taylor shows readers that the execution of separation did not work well. The Mississippi River islands did not provide refugees with proper shelter, landscapes, or economic opportunities. It was a quick solution that did not work.

Taylor points out that there were over 200 refugee camps in the occupied South with over “half a million people” taking up residence in these spaces. The tragedy of these spaces being so easily reduced to nothing on the physical landscape and history books is enormous. For refugees, the loss of camps was akin to losing all sense of freedom again. Everything built since their freedom was being destroyed and taken away from them. One has to wonder at the psychological effects of it all on the refugees. The resettlement process would have been very traumatic.

I appreciate Taylor’s emphasis on how finding Union lines did not mean the refugees were completely free. Freedom was something those in bondage would have to fight their way out of through various means. In the different chapters, Taylor shows that the enslaved living how they wanted to was a form of freedom and resistance. The snippets of African American marriage and family point back to the struggles Tera Hunter’s Bound in Wedlock outlined. The idea of enslaved marriages being less than because it was not officiated by white preachers or recognized by the federal government comes up in this book.

Amy Taylor adds to the historiography of the Civil War with her emphasis on the escaped enslaved in the South. Taylor’s work should be read in American schools. Embattled Freedom shows freedom did not occur when the Emancipation Proclamation was issued. Freedom was something hard-fought by African Americans, not only physically but mentally. The Civil War may have started the path to freedom, but it illustrates that safety and security did not come with freedom.

A short essay on how American nationalism has evolved, This America makes the case for how modern American Nationalism came to be. This America will appeal to a wide audience because of its short nature and easy-to-read information. I did not enjoy this as much as after reading American Crucible: Race and Nation in the Twentieth Century simply because Lepore simplifies the evolution of Nationalism too much. Jill Lepore does call for a new Americanism to rise up in the place of the racial civic nationalism that pervades the country right now. It's a good place to start in the pursuit of knowledge about nationalism in America.

I wanted to love and respond more to Home is Not a Country than I did. I appreciate poetry and books in prose but I didn't like the majority of this book. The narrative could be hard to follow as the author merged imagination and reality together. The main themes of grief and alienation were present from beginning to end. I enjoyed Nima's growth through the narrative, seeing how she evolved was the best part of Home is Not a Country. I wished I could have loved it more.

Gary Gerstle lays a lot of blame on Theodore Rosevelt in American Crucible. Rosevelt is the catalyst for the current American Nationalism. Gerstle focuses on two types of nationalism Civic and Racial. He charts the rise, fall and intertwining of each one of them in American history. The dual nature of American Nationalism is traced from the Spanish-American War to the age of Obama. Observations of different Presidents' rhetoric or language and policies show the nations nationalistic views in that era. Gerstle shows why and how American nationalism is the way it is in the modern day.