The Warmth of Other Suns
Product ID: 64798635
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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In this beautifully written masterwork, the Pulitzer Prize–winnner and bestselling author of Caste chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities, in search of a better life.NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America. Wilkerson compares this epic migration to the migrations of other peoples in history. She interviewed more than a thousand people, and gained access to new data and official records, to write this definitive and vividly dramatic account of how these American journeys unfolded, altering our cities, our country, and ourselves. With stunning historical detail, Wilkerson tells this story through the lives of three unique individuals: Ida Mae Gladney, who in 1937 left sharecropping and prejudice in Mississippi for Chicago, where she achieved quiet blue-collar success and, in old age, voted for Barack Obama when he ran for an Illinois Senate seat; sharp and quick-tempered George Starling, who in 1945 fled Florida for Harlem, where he endangered his job fighting for civil rights, saw his family fall, and finally found peace in God; and Robert Foster, who left Louisiana in 1953 to pursue a medical career, the personal physician to Ray Charles as part of a glitteringly successful medical career, which allowed him to purchase a grand home where he often threw exuberant parties.Wilkerson brilliantly captures their first treacherous and exhausting cross-country trips by car and train and their new lives in colonies that grew into ghettos, as well as how they changed these cities with southern food, faith, and culture and improved them with discipline, drive, and hard work. Both a riveting microcosm and a major assessment, The Warmth of Other Suns is a bold, remarkable, and riveting work, a superb account of an “unrecognized immigration” within our own land. Through the breadth of its narrative, the beauty of the writing, the depth of its research, and the fullness of the people and lives portrayed herein, this book is destined to become a classic.MARK LYNTON HISTORY PRIZE WINNERHEARTLAND AWARD WINNER DAYTON LITERARY PEACE PRIZE FINALISTNAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BYThe New York Times • USA Today • O: The Oprah Magazine • desertcart • Publishers Weekly • Salon • Newsday • The Daily Beast NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BYThe New Yorker • The Washington Post • The Economist • Boston Globe • San Francisco Chronicle • Chicago Tribune • Entertainment Weekly • Philadelphia Inquirer • The Guardian • The Seattle Times • St. Louis Post-Dispatch • The Christian Science Monitor Review: Excellent book on pain and plight of migration - A must for read holistic persons Review: Excellent - Very good condition and hlp increase knowledge about American history
| Best Sellers Rank | #134,830 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #189 in Cultural & Ethnic Studies #469 in United States History (Books) #523 in History of Civilization & Culture |
| Customer Reviews | 4.8 out of 5 stars 24,101 Reviews |
B**T
Excellent book on pain and plight of migration
A must for read holistic persons
K**N
Excellent
Very good condition and hlp increase knowledge about American history
D**C
Five Stars
An excellent recount that explains a lot.
S**R
A must read
The author has researched well enough and hence the final product is unputdownable ! A must read for people across the globe
H**I
Aewsome
It was delivered one day before estimated time... Superb book.....About half way through it...
K**H
Bad quality product
It is just a pirated copy not the original publication.
N**L
Paper back edition- Very small print and difficult to read
Very good book but causes considerable eye strain.
R**G
Damaged and very flimsy copy
A**O
Ilustrador
Aún me queda un poco para terminar el libro, pero hasta ahora me ha gustado, la narración de las historias que se entrelazan para dibujar la historia de las migraciones internas, el racismo, la forma de vivir en el sur durante varias generaciones descendientes de esclavos. Me gusta porque los datos no están uno tras otro, sino que se entremezclan en las historias y anécdotas de los personajes que los llegas a sentir como si fueran tus vecinos. Altamente recomendable.
G**R
Elegy to a Forgotten Generation
Over the course of six decades in the 20th century 6 million black Americans left the South of the United States to settle the cities of the North and West. The Great Migration was greater in numbers and equal in significance to any other population movement in America’s history. It has received far less attention than a handful of 17th century pilgrims, yet it reshaped America. This fantastic book tells that story through the eyes of the migrants themselves. The author has a deeply personal connection to it – her own parents made that journey. She interviewed over a thousand people in the course of her research, The narrative’s focus is on three of them. This is the story of their lives. Ida Mae left Mississippi in 1937 bound for Chicago. George fled Florida in 1945 and settled in Harlem, in 1953 Robert drove from Louisiana across America to Los Angeles. They tell us why they decided to go, how they left, what they encountered when they arrived and how their lives evolved. They took their destiny into their own hands out of the grasp of Jim Crow. They decided for themselves. Not all their decisions were perhaps the best but none regretted leaving the South. What lives they lived were the lives they made. A common thesis, that still persists, asserts that the surge of migration took the least capable and implanted them in such numbers that the cities they settled in were destabilised, anomie and crime supplemented deprivation. She refutes this. The migrants were the most resourceful in their communities as their very decision to leave demonstrated. As a collective they remade America, North and West and East and South in multiple positive ways. The final chapters recount their final years. Isabel Wilkerson did an important service in capturing their memories before they passed away. This is an elegy to a forgotten generation. There is an issue of course with memory. The interviewees were in their seventies and older, they were frail so reliability and accuracy must be factored in. But this is true of all oral history and in this instance counteracted by the sheer number of supported interviews she conducted and her use of a wide range of other sources. A remarkable and moving story.
X**L
Un llibre clau per comprendre el conflicte racial als EUA
És un llibre magnífic que permet conèixer amb rigor científic i, al mateix temps, amb un estil entre literari i periodístic que és un encert, aquest gran i desconegut fenòmen històric. T'ajuda a entendre i molt, la tensió racial als estats units que, desgraciadament, és contínuament notícia. Per aquells que vulgueu practicar el vostre anglès, el nivell lingüístic és assequible per un anglès B2
A**R
informativo
Bastante informação sobre a história da divisão de brancos e negros dos estados unidos. Uma obra de leitura obrigatória para entender a divisão e segregação do país
R**A
Thorough and enlightening
An engaging and informative unveiling of a significant element of America’s cultural shaping. A long read but one that keeps you engaging as it ducks between stories. I was moved as the three stories neared their end. Wilkerson shines a light on the power of the migration across generations of African American families. She encourages to understand the past to shape the future.
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