Book Discussion: Between The World and Me
Saturdays, January 5, 12 and 26, 9:15 - 11 AM
Roslindale Library
We will be discussing Ta-Nehisi Coates's ground-breaking book, Between the World and Me, which explores uncomfortable truths about race in America. The discussions will be led by local educator Josh Frank and books will be available to borrow from the Roslindale Library soon.
Between The World and Me
By Ta-Nehisi Coates
In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and the current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,” a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men—bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden?
Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates’s attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son—and readers—the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children’s lives were taken as American plunder. Beautifully woven from personal narrative, reimagined history, and fresh, emotionally charged reportage, Between the World and Me, clearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward.
Book Discussion: A People's History of the United States
Saturdays, February 2, 9, 23 & March 2, 9:15 - 11 AM
Roslindale Library
We will discuss Howard Zinn's classic on the version of American history you don't learn in school! The discussions will be led by local educator Josh Frank and books will be available to borrow from the library soon.
A People's History of the United States
By Howard Zinn
With a new introduction by Anthony Arnove, this edition of the classic national bestseller chronicles American history from the bottom up, throwing out the official narrative taught in schools—with its emphasis on great men in high places—to focus on the street, the home, and the workplace.
Known for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly research, A People's History of the United States is the only volume to tell America's story from the point of view of—and in the words of—America's women, factory workers, African-Americans, Native Americans, the working poor, and immigrant laborers. As historian Howard Zinn shows, many of our country's greatest battles—the fights for a fair wage, an eight-hour workday, child labor laws, health and safety standards, universal suffrage, women's rights, racial equality—were carried out at the grassroots level, against bloody resistance.
Covering Christopher Columbus's arrival through President Clinton's first term, A People's History of the United States features insightful analysis of the most important events in our history.