Alex Haley
Mass Market Paperback | Pages: 729 pages Rating: 4.44 | 140152 Users | 3217 Reviews
Particularize Regarding Books Roots: The Saga of an American Family
| Title | : | Roots: The Saga of an American Family |
| Author | : | Alex Haley |
| Book Format | : | Mass Market Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Special Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 729 pages |
| Published | : | November 1st 1977 by Dell Publishing Company (first published August 17th 1976) |
| Categories | : | Fantasy. Science Fiction. Dragons. Fiction. Science Fiction Fantasy. Young Adult. High Fantasy |
Ilustration Toward Books Roots: The Saga of an American Family
When he was a boy in Henning, Tennessee, Alex Haley's grandmother used to tell him stories about their family—stories that went back to her grandparents, and their grandparents, down through the generations all the way to a man she called "the African." She said he had lived across the ocean near what he called the "Kamby Bolongo" and had been out in the forest one day chopping wood to make a drum when he was set upon by four men, beaten, chained and dragged aboard a slave ship bound for Colonial America. Still vividly remembering the stories after he grew up and became a writer, Haley began to search for documentation that might authenticate the narrative. It took ten years and a half a million miles of travel across three continents to find it, but finally, in an astonishing feat of genealogical detective work, he discovered not only the name of "the African"—Kunta Kinte—but the precise location of Juffure, the very village in The Gambia, West Africa, from which he was abducted in 1767 at the age of sixteen and taken on the Lord Ligonier to Maryland and sold to a Virginia planter. Haley has talked in Juffure with his own African sixth cousins. On September 29, 1967, he stood on the dock in Annapolis where his great-great-great-great-grandfather was taken ashore on September 29, 1767. Now he has written the monumental two-century drama of Kunta Kinte and the six generations who came after him—slaves and freedmen, farmers and blacksmiths, lumber mill workers and Pullman porters, lawyers and architects—and one author. But Haley has done more than recapture the history of his own family. As the first black American writer to trace his origins back to their roots, he has told the story of 25,000,000 Americans of African descent. He has rediscovered for an entire people a rich cultural heritage that slavery took away from them, along with their names and their identities. But Roots speaks, finally, not just to blacks, or to whites, but to all people and all races everywhere, for the story it tells is one of the most eloquent testimonials ever written to the indomitability of the human spirit.Itemize Books Supposing Roots: The Saga of an American Family
| Original Title: | Roots |
| ISBN: | 0440174643 (ISBN13: 9780440174646) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Characters: | George Lincoln Rockwell, Alex Haley, Kunta Kinte |
| Setting: | United States of America Gambia |
| Literary Awards: | ASJA Outstanding Book Award (1978), Audie Award for Nonfiction (2008), Premio Bancarella (1978), National Book Critics Circle Award Nominee for General Nonfiction (1976), Lillian Smith Book Award (1977) |
Rating Regarding Books Roots: The Saga of an American Family
Ratings: 4.44 From 140152 Users | 3217 ReviewsCrit Regarding Books Roots: The Saga of an American Family
Wow...I will be doing a FULL review for this soon.I read this book long, long ago: came across it while going through a book list here on Goodreads, and suddenly felt the urge to post a review.Dear Kunta Kinte,We are separated by time, space and culture. Throughout your largely tragic life, you would never have imagined that your story would ever be written, let alone read by a bookish teenager in far-away India, for whom slavery till that day was only a fact learned from school textbooks, mucked up to pass hated history exams. However, Mr.
I have never read anything like this in my life. Take the time. It is well worth it.
this is a perfect example of a book that would benefit from GR offering different rating criteria, rather than just one overall rating. because of the cultural and historical significance of roots, it deserves 5-stars. but because i was really expecting much stronger writing and a smoother style - i mean, he's got 900 pages to work with here; it's not like there's a shortage of space - i feel like the book was only 2½ to 3-stars on the quality of writing. i did very much enjoy the dialects haley
Magnificent. The epic chronicle of a family through many generations of cruelty, hardship and suffering. But it's much more than that really; it's the history of slavery in America. What happened to the characters in this book happened to millions of others and it's a story that needed to be told and Alex Haley did a masterful job of telling it. Roots should be required reading in high schools because all of us, regardless of age, race, or gender should understand this history. You can't tell
This was one of the first books I ever read concerning the trans-Atlantic slave trade and American slavery, and I consider the work one of the greatest epics ever written. I certainly recommend reading the actual book instead of watching the television mini-series. The historical research conducted by Haley in composing this masterpiece is awe-inspiring. A definite literary selection long-marked as required reading for my daughters once they reach middle school...as it should be read by all
I loved both the book and movie versions of this powerful, historical saga: I will never forget the indomitable Kunta Kinte. This book changed my very sheltered teenage world view. Decades later, I am now reading Esi Edugyan's Washington Black, and once again I am brought face to face with humanity's truly awful dark side. I have to read these gut-wrenching novels in bits and pieces, because my poor aging heart can no longer take so much horror in one long sitting.With the perspective of time
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