Book Description

Bill Buford—author of the highly acclaimed best-selling Among the Thugs—had long thought of himself as a reasonably comfortable cook when in 2002 he finally decided to answer a question that had nagged him every time he prepared a meal: What kind of cook could he be if he worked in a professional kitchen? When the opportunity arose to train in the kitchen of Mario Batali’s three-star New York restaurant, Babbo, Buford grabbed it. Heat is the chronicle—sharp, funny, wonderfully exuberant—of his time spent as Batali’s “slave” and of his far-flung apprenticeships with culinary masters in Italy.

In a fast-paced, candid narrative, Buford describes the frenetic experience of working in Babbo’s kitchen: the trials and errors (and more errors), humiliations and hopes, disappointments and triumphs as he worked his way up the ladder from slave to cook. He talks about his relationships with his kitchen colleagues and with the larger-than-life, hard-living Batali, whose story he learns as their friendship grows through (and sometimes despite) kitchen encounters and after-work all-nighters.

Buford takes us to the restaurant in a remote Appennine village where Batali first apprenticed in Italy and where Buford learns the intricacies of handmade pasta . . . the hill town in Chianti where he is tutored in the art of butchery by Italy’s most famous butcher, a man who insists that his meat is an expression of the Italian soul . . . to London, where he is instructed in the preparation of game by Marco Pierre White, one of England’s most celebrated (or perhaps notorious) chefs. And throughout, we follow the thread of Buford’s fascinating reflections on food as a bearer of culture, on the history and development of a few special dishes (Is the shape of tortellini really based on a woman’s navel? And just what is a short rib?), and on the what and why of the foods we eat today.

Heat is a marvelous hybrid: a richly evocative memoir of Buford’s kitchen adventure, the story of Batali’s amazing rise to culinary (and extra-culinary) fame, a dazzling behind-the-scenes look at the workings of a famous restaurant, and an illuminating exploration of why food matters.

It is a book to delight in—and to savor.

Customer Reviews:

Fun, fun fun in the bowels of the kitchen.......2007-10-12

I read Bourdain's book and loved it. I also liked this one. Raw, honest talk from someone who has been there.
The autobiography part was fascinating (can such characters really populate elite restaurants!?) and the lowdown on furiously making food night after night was priceless. The last section was too blah blah about Mario Batali, although the scenes of Italy were intriguing. A must read for real food lovers.

A humorous read that made me hungry!.......2007-10-07

Who wouldn't want to go on Buford's journey? He's a great tour guide on his gasto-tour of the kitchens of the Mario Batali and Pierre Marco White. He shows that kitchens can be places that are filled with potential dangers and loads of passion. It took me awhile to get through this book, in part because I kept getting hungry and had to go make something to eat! I'm ready to go clamp the pasta machine to the counter and whip up some fresh pasta.

It's a pretty dense book to get through, and the author wanders away from the main story often. Most of the time, it's to an interesting place, but sometimes, it's just a tangent. But aside from a few of those as a distraction, I thought this was a great book.

Interesting but not what I thought it was going to be.......2007-09-19

I got this book because my husband heard an interview on the radio and thought I would like it since I love to cook. It was interesting but spent too much time, for me, on the politics of working in a restaurant kitchen and not enough on the workings of food in a restaurant. I bored with the personalities and gave up trying to figure out who was who.

I think I made the pages soggy..........2007-09-17

This guy, Bill Buford, is pretty amazing. Despite the danger of slicing off his hands entirely (an accident that he somehow manages to repeat) under various huge, sharp, professional knives, he insisted going (back again and again) to Italy to learn about things so obscure even professional chefs wouldn't have much idea about.
If you're looking for a book about Batali, this isn't the most comprehensive one, but it's scathingly honest and if you really live and breathe food, you'll gain a whole lot more than goss about the inner workings of Batali's businesses. It gets a bit soppy at times - a bit too "Tuscany is beautiful, and Provence is the ultimate foodie heaven", but only fleetingly, and all can be forgiven once you read about the author's hilarious effort to cook a whole pig...

ZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.......2007-09-11

The chapters on Mario Batali and the dynamics of his kitchen were really interesting and engaging. I was intrigud by the sections on Marco Pierre White as I had just read Gordon Ramsey's autobiography in which his tempestuous relationship with White plays a significant role. The rest of Buford's book is just too tediously, self-indulgently written to the point where it killed my interest in the underlying subjects of pasta making and butchery (I ended up skimming page after page as I just couldn't take it). It reminded me of a computer spitting forth every bit of information in its memory regardless of relevance or interest. Just too many tedious, boorish details.

Average customer rating: What a Great Read! Very touching A must read book This book changed my life! book

Same Kind of Different as Me: A Modern-Day Slave, an International Art Dealer, and the Unlikely Woman Who Bound Them Together Ron Hall , and Denver Moore Manufacturer: Thomas Nelson ProductGroup: Book Binding: Hardcover African-American & Black | Ethnic & National | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books Religious | Leaders & Notable People | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books Women | Specific Groups | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books Memoirs | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books Apologetics | Theology | Christianity | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books General | Theology | Religious Studies | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books Slavery & Emancipation | World | History | Subjects | Books Similar Items: Jesus Mean and Wild: The Unexpected Love of an Untamable God Walking from East to West: God in the Shadows Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference? Get Out of That Pit: Straight Talk about God's Deliverance The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical ASIN: 0849900417

Book Description

Meet Denver, a man raised under plantation-style slavery in Louisiana in the 1960s; a man who escaped, hopping a train to wander, homeless, for eighteen years on the streets of Dallas, Texas. No longer a slave, Denver's life was still hopeless-until God moved. First came a godly woman who prayed, listened, and obeyed. And then came her husband, Ron, an international arts dealer at home in a world of Armani-suited millionaires. And then they all came together.

But slavery takes many forms. Deborah discovers that she has cancer. In the face of possible death, she charges her husband to rescue Denver. Who will be saved, and who will be lost? What is the future for these unlikely three? What is God doing?

Same Kind of Different As Me is the emotional tale of their story: a telling of pain and laughter, doubt and tears, dug out between the bondages of this earth and the free possibility of heaven. No reader or listener will ever forget it.

Customer Reviews:

What a Great Read!.......2007-10-10

This book was recommended by a colleague and I could not find it here in Key West. I ordered two copies from Amazon and gave them both to friends (after reading). I was moved to tears by parts of the book. If anybody has any concerns about homeless issues, this book will renew one's faith in what can be done. It is one of the finest books on homeless issues that I have read in many years.

Very touching.......2007-10-01

This is a very readable book. It is also extremely touching. Several times as I read,I found tears streaming down my face. It will restore your faith in mankind and that there is more to a person than meets the eye.

A must read book.......2007-09-29

I don't have proper words to express this "amazing" book.

I can now better understand how it used to be in Slave times,
and feel a better understanding of my own faith and life after death.

I cried at moments of revealation! Would help anyone become a believer.

This book changed my life!.......2007-09-25

It's very easy to forget that this is a true story - it is such an amazing story that it could be fiction! It's a beautiful, poignant, touching book and it changed the way I view the homeless and how I share my resources with others. LOVED IT and I've been telling everyone I know to read it too!!

book.......2007-09-18

I ordered this book for my husband who had heard it was wonderful. He thought it was the best book he had ever read and he highly recommends it!!

Average customer rating: depressing An absolute must read (and read again) NOT A STORY TO PASS ON . . . Ain't no sin but white people One of Those Never-to-be-Forgotten Works [7][31][T]

Beloved Toni Morrison Manufacturer: Vintage ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback General | African American | United States | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books Morrison, Toni | African American | United States | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books Literary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books General | Morrison, Toni | ( M ) | Authors, A-Z | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books Paperback | Morrison, Toni | ( M ) | Authors, A-Z | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books Similar Items: American Pastoral Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West Invisible Man Their Eyes Were Watching God The Bluest Eye (Oprah's Book Club) ASIN: 1400033411 Release Date: 2004-06-08

Book Description

Staring unflinchingly into the abyss of slavery, this spellbinding novel transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby. Sethe, its protagonist, was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe’s new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved. Filled with bitter poetry and suspense as taut as a rope, Beloved is a towering achievement.

Customer Reviews:

depressing.......2007-10-10

This book was depressing-nothing light about it-the style of writing is different and visual but if you are in it for a story, it is a tough read.

An absolute must read (and read again).......2007-09-19

Here is a shockingly raw story that could only be told so completely by Toni Morrison's unique brand of lyricism. This book is more than a tutorial on the atrocities of slavery. It is a jagged look at the power of fear, intimidation, guilt, shame, and how we can be haunted mercilessly by our pasts. It is also a story of the redemptive power of love and forgiveness (beginning with onesself). The movie Beloved follows the story line, dialogue, and symbolism almost verbatim. It's a great visual to enhance this book that should be read again and again throughtout the years. I think the reader will be surprised by their burgeoning understanding of this powerful work.

NOT A STORY TO PASS ON . . ........2007-08-28

I read this book for the first time in 1999; I had to think about it prior to knowing how I felt about it. However, I have come to realize that this is a kind of African American Reference book, not only for understanding slavery, but for many cultural pitfalls that are indigneous to the Af-Am community. Therefore, if you don't know anything about the history of blacks as enslaved community, or if you don't wish to be provoked into thinking, don't attempt to read this or any of her earlier works. I came to the understanding that Morrison writes in a kind of double consciousness when I was reading the inane reviews of Paradise. One can't be taught to understand Morrison, nor can she be read superficially.

Ain't no sin but white people.......2007-07-23

Each whitepeople should be made to read this book until he vomits and cries. This is what whitepeople did to black people--they stole their souls, took color from their eyes. . .If this book doesn't break apart your heart and scar up your soul, you ain't human.

One of Those Never-to-be-Forgotten Works [7][31][T].......2007-07-15

Written about slavery and post-slavery travails and the impossibility to enjoy new-found freedom, the horrors experienced by the family of Baby Sugg - most particularly her daughter-in-law, Sethe, and her granddaughter, Denver - lead us to cry for each and their Beloved.

To anyone who has not read Morrison, I give one warning: her topics are very depressing. But, her writing style is not. Therefore, she manages to capture your attention in reading about horrible events and opens your mind to things which we ordinarily do not read about or learn: for instance, after majoring in American History, I learned for the first time in this book that black men would be punished by having a tack put into their mouth at which time their mouths became deformed, tongue dried to the point of needing weeks to repair, and became mentally humiliated to an unknown degree.

There is a bit of Stephen King in this book - an apparition with the single name of Beloved returns to the family. To avenge? Or, to love? Or by her love is she an avenger? In any event, this character speaks few words but influences Denver and Sethe immensely, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse.

One force which seems to wrestle sanely in the insanely cruel world of slavery is Paul D. After having experienced worse tortures, mental and physical, than most others, he maintains a balanced perspective. He is the ballast to Sethe's tumultuous inner conflict. Sethe, we learn, experiences a "Sophie's Choice" situation which others view with disdain, but which we learn to understand. Even though we may not agree to the same, we understand. Morrison explains to us why good people can perform bad acts. In most simplest terms, she writes their reason of being good people that do bad things is, " That anybody white could take your whole self for anything that came to mind. Not just work, kill, or maim you, but dirty you. Dirty you so bad that you couldn't like yourself anymore."

But, those who had been slaves sought to protect their young - those who would be born free or became free before their memories jelled - from having this white-man manifestation of hate for self.

Strong topic. Strong delivery. Unique writing style. Great novel. Deeply touching. Deeply depressing. Probably, one of those never-to-be-forgotten works which you will remember for years after you turned the last page.

Average customer rating: Suspend your disbelief and it's pretty good Fascinating FINN, a dark chapter of racism in America Pretentious Very good

Finn: A Novel Jon Clinch Manufacturer: Random House ProductGroup: Book Binding: Hardcover Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books Literary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books Historical | Genre Fiction | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books Action & Adventure | Genre Fiction | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books Similar Items: Heyday: A Novel The Double Bind: A Novel Ten Days in the Hills The Terror: A Novel Heart-Shaped Box: A Novel ASIN: 1400065917 Release Date: 2007-02-20

Book Description

In this masterful debut by a major new voice in fiction, Jon Clinch takes us on a journey into the history and heart of one of American literature’s most brutal and mysterious figures: Huckleberry Finn’s father. The result is a deeply original tour de force that springs from Twain’s classic novel but takes on a fully realized life of its own.

Finn sets a tragic figure loose in a landscape at once familiar and mythic. It begins and ends with a lifeless body–flayed and stripped of all identifying marks–drifting down the Mississippi. The circumstances of the murder, and the secret of the victim’s identity, shape Finn’s story as they will shape his life and his death.

Along the way Clinch introduces a cast of unforgettable characters: Finn’s terrifying father, known only as the Judge; his sickly, sycophantic brother, Will; blind Bliss, a secretive moonshiner; the strong and quick-witted Mary, a stolen slave who becomes Finn’s mistress; and of course young Huck himself. In daring to re-create Huck for a new generation, Clinch gives us a living boy in all his human complexity–not an icon, not a myth, but a real child facing vast possibilities in a world alternately dangerous and bright.

Finn is a novel about race; about paternity in its many guises; about the shame of a nation recapitulated by the shame of one absolutely unforgettable family. Above all, Finn reaches back into the darkest waters of America’s past to fashion something compelling, fearless, and new.

Praise for Finn
“A brave and ambitious debut novel… It stands on its own while giving new life and meaning to Twain’s novel, which has been stirring passions and debates since 1885… triumph of imagination and graceful writing…. Bookstores and libraries shelve novels alphabetically by authors’ names. That leaves Clinch a long way from Twain. But on my bookshelves, they'll lean against each other. I’d like to think that the cantankerous Twain would welcome the company.”
–USA TODAY

“Ravishing…In the saga of this tormented human being, Clinch brings us a radical (and endlessly debatable) new take on Twain’s classic, and a stand-alone marvel of a novel. Grade: A.”
–ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY

“A fascinating, original read.”
–people

“Haunting…Clinch reimagines Finn in a strikingly original way, replacing Huck’s voice with his own magisterial vision–one that’s nothing short of revelatory…Spellbinding.”
–WASHINGTON POST

“Meticulously crafted…Marvelous imagination…The Finn of Clinch’s novel is certainly a racist villain but also psychologically disturbed and disconcertingly compelling.”
–SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

“From the barest of hints in Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, Clinch has created a fully believable world inhabited by fully realized characters. Clinch treads dangerous ground in making one of America’s greatest novels his jumping-off point, but he brings it off magnificently…The language of this book is one of its great beauties…Finn is far from one-dimensional, and that is another beauty of the book. Clinch has a knack for putting us squarely inside the heads of his characters….Clinch draws as compelling and realistic a picture as any we’re likely to find…Finn stands on its own. The richness of its language, the depth of its characters, the emotional and societal tangles through which they struggle to navigate add up to a portrait of life on the Mississippi as we’ve never before experienced it.”
–dallas morning news

“His models may include Cormac McCarthy, and Charles Frazier, whose Cold Mountain also has a voice that sounds like 19th-century American (both formal and colloquial) but has a contemporary terseness and spikiness. This voice couldn’t be better suited to a historical novel with a modernist sensibility: Clinch’s riverbank Missouri feels postapocalyptic, and his Pap Finn is a crazed yet wily survivor in a polluted landscape…Clinch’s Pap is a convincingly nightmarish extrapolation of Twain’s. He’s the mad, lost and dangerous center of a world we’d hate to live in–or do we still live there?–and crave to revisit as soon as we close the book.”
–newsweek

“I haven’t been swallowed whole by a work of fiction in some time. Jon Clinch’s first novel has done it: sucked me under like I was a rag doll thrown into the wake of a Mississippi steamboat…Jon Clinch has turned in a nearly perfect first book, a creative response that matches The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in intensity and tenacious soul-searching about racism. I wish I could write well enough to construct a dramatic, subtle and mysterious story out of careful, plodding and unromantic prose, but for now I’m just happy to have an alchemist like Jon Clinch do it for me.”
–BOOKSLUT

“Finn strikes its most original chords in its bold imagining of possibilities left unexplored by Huckleberry Finn.”
–austin american-statesman

“An inspired riff on one of literature’s all-time great villains…This tale of fathers and sons, slavery and freedom, better angels at war with dark demons, is filled with passages of brilliant description, violence that is close-up and terrifying…Everything in this novel could have happened, and we believe it… so the great river of stories is too, twisting and turning, inspiring such surprising and inspired riffs and tributes as Finn.”
–new orleans times-picayune

“A triumph of succesful plotting, convincing characterization and lyrical prose.”
–ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS

“Shocking and charming. Clinch creates a folk-art masterpiece that will delight, beguile and entertain as it does justice to its predecessor…In Finn, Clinch expands the bloodlines and scope of the original story and casts new light on the troubled legacy of our country’s infamous past.”
–new york post

“In Clinch’s retelling, Pap Finn comes vibrantly to life as a complex, mysterious, strangely likable figure…Clinch includes many sharply realized, sometimes harrowing, even gruesome scenes…Finn should appeal not only to scholars of 19th century literature but to anyone who cares to sample a forceful debut novel inspired by a now-mythic American story.”
–atlanta journal-consitution

“What makes bearable this river voyage that never ventures far beyond the banks is the compelling narrative Clinch has created. He writes exceedingly well, not with the immediacy Twain imbued to Huck's voice, but with an impersonal narrator’s voice that almost perversely refuses to take sides. And the plot is masterful.”
–fredericksburg freelance-star

“Disturbing and darkly compelling…Clinch displays impressive imagination and descriptiveness…anyone who encounters Finn will long be hautned by this dark and bloody tale.”
–hartford courant

“Jon Clinch pulls off the near impossible in his new novel, Finn, which brings Huck's dad to life in all his terrible humanness…Clinch vividly paints the origins of the amazing Huck...powerfully told.”
–winston-salem journal

“Gripping…he inventively remaps known literary territory…the descriptive riffs are lucent.”
–chicago tribune

“The best debut so far of 2007.”
–men’s journal

“Inventing Huckleberry Finn’s father using only the thin scraps of information that Mark Twain provided is a pretty admirable feat, and reading Jon Clinch’s first novel provides an almost tactile pleasure…Clinch clearly respects Twain, but he doesn’t feel especially cowed by his inspiration, and some of his inventions qualify as genuine improvements on the original text.”
–washington city paper

“In this darkly luminous debut…Clinch lyrically renders the Mississippi River’s ceaseless flow, while revealing Finn’s brutal contradictions, his violence, arrogance and self-reproach.”
–Publishers Weekly, STARRED review

“Bold and deeply disturbing. . . A few incidents duplicate those in Twain,
but the novels could not be more different; instead of Huck’s unlettered child’s voice,
we have an omniscient narrative, grave, erudite and rich in the secretions of adult knowledge;
terse dialogue acts as an effective counterpoint. All along, Clinch’s intent
is to probe the nature of evil . . . a memorable debut, likely to make waves.”
–KIRKUS REVIEWS, STARRED review

“Every fan of Twain’s masterpiece will want to read this inspired spin-off, which could become an unofficial companion volume.”
–LIBRARY JOURNAL, STARRED review

“This is a bold debut that takes a few tentative steps in tandem with the familiar Twain,
but then veers off dexterously down a much more insidious, harrowing path.”
–BOOKLIST

“Jon Clinch’s first novel Finn…succeeds wonderfully because its gritty lyricism is at once authentic and original…reminiscent at times of Cormac McCarthy…the eloquence of the telling will never make the courageous reader wish for a gentler touch. Like any appealing novel, Finn achieves the force of a dream with fascinating actions, indelible characters and spellbinding language. Its ...

Customer Reviews:

Suspend your disbelief and it's pretty good.......2007-09-27

If your favorite folk song got reworked by Queen, you might like it. Or maybe not.

The writing is vivid, the "I can't put it down," type, and this is good because there are built in roadblocks: you know what's gonna happen to Pap Finn before you even pick up the book, the language and history are not in sync with the time represented, and--most importantly, Clinch fails to convince me that Huck is half black.

I am aware that the inspiration for Huck was very likely a black boy Twain knew, whom everyone envied for his freedom. However, the boy Twain talks about was not someone Twain said hated and denigrated [his own race]. In Twain's book, Huck's racism comes so naturally to him, and his realization that Jim is a human being is so difficult for him, it is not possible to reconcile that person with one raised lovingly by a black mother. In addition, by the time Finn lies to Huck about his mother Huck knows Pap to be a liar about everything else.

That said, Clinch delivers quite a few "Aha! THAT explains it!" moments, such as his explanation for why there was writing on the walls of the "house of death" or how Huck got so superstitious. And his pictures of the Widow and of Judge Thatcher are intriguing.

Good for when you're already in a nasty, cynical mood. Also good for making me want to pick up Huck Finn again.

Fascinating.......2007-09-12

Finn is not an easy book to read because, in its own way, it is even more horrifying than the fantastical books by writers such as Thomas Harris who splash gore around to such a degree that their books lose all sense of realism. The horrible crimes that are committed in Finn, on the other hand, always make the reader cringe simply because they seem to be happening to real people in a real world. As is so often the case in a man like Finn, he is the product of cold and abusive parents who warped him from the beginning. He is in constant rebellion against his father, a town judge who rules his courtroom and his home with an iron fist and who has no more sympathy for his sons than he does for the criminals he sees in court.

Clinch, of course, begins with the world created by Mark Twain in Huckleberry Finn but he fleshes out that world in a way that Twain himself was unable to do in the period in which he wrote. Using incidents and characters from Twain's book, Clinch provides the back story to Huck's tale that explains much of what Twain had to leave unsaid in the original.

The elder Finn depends on the Mississippi River for his very life. The river provides him with the catfish that he sells or exchanges in town for the supplies that keep him alive. More importantly to Finn, it is the sale of those same fish that make it possible for him to consume the amount of alcohol that makes life worth living for him. Equally important, the Mississippi is always there to cover a man's sins and, as the book begins, one of those sins, a dead woman who has been skinned, is floating down the middle of the river toward town. But since Finn is a psychopath this is hardly the last of his crimes that the reader will witness.

The most controversial aspect of the novel is Clinch's contention that Huck was a mulatto whose mother had been purchased off a steamboat in slave territory and taken back to Illinois against her will. That Huckleberry Finn was a black child is not a new theory, and Clinch has made that possibility the centerpiece of his novel. That fact alone determines the ultimate fate of not only Finn but of Mary, Huck's mother, and it leads to the complete moral collapse of Judge Finn.

This may not be an easy book to read, and I don't feel that I should say that I enjoyed it, but it is definitely one that will stay with me for a while. I've read many books that I can barely remember any details of just a year or two later. Finn is in no danger of becoming one of those.

FINN, a dark chapter of racism in America.......2007-09-11

When you read FINN by Jon Clinch, you are immediately taken back to the 19th century where the story begins about the detestable life of Pap Finn, the father of Huckleberry Finn from Mark Twain's THE ADVENTURES OFFINN HUCKLEBERRY FINN.

FINN is a sequel to Huckleberry Finn concentrating on the life of Huck's father and his misdeeds. The writing is formal and the slang mimics the language used at that time so much so that you sometimes don't know what they are talking about.

Clinch, a professor of American literature, breathed life into some of the characters from the original story - the widow Douglas, Judge Thatcher and even weaves the $6,000 in gold Huck found in the cave.

The thrust of this book, however, is the character Finn, a laid back drunkard, who shuns authority and all its trappings including his respectable father, Judge Thatcher and his often spineless brother, Will, who cannot stand up to the Judge.

But what comes across most powerfully in this story is the raw brutality of life, the cruelty to others, the subsistent poverty and the entrenched disregard and racism towards blacks. The characters treat blacks in the story no differently than you would a bug found in your house and don't even flinch when they sometimes swat the life out of these innocents for a wrong word or an indifferent look. The brutality is so intense in some of the scenes that I cringed reading it. However, Clinch says in his note at the end of the book that these characteristics were, "...all drawn whole from Twain's novel and followed here to their likely ends."

FINN is the dark version of Huckleberry Finn portraying the brutality and cruelty of life in the 19th century and perhaps Clinch was trying to awaken us to the horrors and senselessness of blatant racism.

Pretentious.......2007-09-04

This seems like a college writing class assignment taken too far. Or a literary publicity stunt. I don't understand the idea of attaching yourself to someonelse's work. I'm unhappy, beacause I was actually excited to read this book. Now everytime I read Huck Finn I have this book's stain to erase.

First it is so slow that it put me to sleep every 10 pages.

I don't understand why it is written so far from Twain's style. I know he's not trying to be Twain, but he's using Twain's setting, characters and some of his scenes!

Why put in big words, like micturate, when Twain didn't. Should we be impressed?

Can we also stop with novels mixing up the timeline! Is this supposed to make it more excitng or mysterious? If your story isn't good enough for a linear timeline then something is wrong.

The part that really pushed me over the top was the afterword, the author talks about being humble and reverential but then concludes that Twain would have liked what he did with his characters. Come on.

I would recommend this book to insomniacs and fishermen. We have to read about catfish every page.
Everyone else stay away and don't ruin Huckleberry Finn for yourself.

Very good.......2007-07-29

The supple and complex "Finn" is a good example of what I would call gorgeous writing. The prose loops around grandly at times, but there is a legitimate end to this approach. Layers of intent and personality are detected, examined and explained. Most thoughful readers will find delight in that process.

One minor frustration with this novel? It sometimes needed more of the hard slap of context, if only as interlude.

Average customer rating: Be "changed" A powerful message for our generation Great concept, but too preachy Zach is my new hero Porpoise Diving Life March Book Review

Be the Change: Your Guide to Freeing Slaves and Changing the World (Invert) Zach Hunter Manufacturer: Zondervan Publishing Company ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback General | Christianity | Religions | Children's Books | Subjects | Books General | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books General | Christian Living | Christianity | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books General | Christianity | Religion & Spirituality | Teens | Subjects | Books Slavery & Emancipation | World | History | Subjects | Books General | Christianity | Religions | Children's Books | 4-for-3 Books Store | Stores | Books World | History | 4-for-3 Books Store | Stores | Books | 20th Century | General | Jewish | Medieval | Transportation General | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | 4-for-3 Books Store | Stores | Books General | Christian Living | Christianity | Religion & Spirituality | 4-for-3 Books Store | Stores | Books Christianity | Religion & Spirituality | Teens | 4-for-3 Books Store | Stores | Books All 4-for-3 Deals | 4-for-3 Books Store | Stores | Books Similar Items: Not for Sale: The Return of the Global Slave Trade--and How We Can Fight It Terrify No More: Young Girls Held Captive and the Daring Undercover Operation to Win Their Freedom Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy Understanding Global Slavery: A Reader Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery ASIN: 0310277566

Customer Reviews:

Be "changed".......2007-08-08

Zach Hunter's youthful writing style brings home a very real and timely point to all. Is does not take "Age" to make a difference in this world, only passion and a committment to see your vision through to the end.

Zach's book speaks to adults as well as teens. So far I have purchased, read and given away three copies of this book, including one to my 12 year old daughter. Every person I have spoken to about this book has been impressed, and many have gone on to buy a copy for themselves and/or their own teenager.

This is a great selection for a teen or adult book study group.

A powerful message for our generation.......2007-06-14

As teen myself, with a heart to challenge my generation to excellence, Zach Hunter is a warmly-welcomed voice of vision, maturity, and biblical truth. His book speaks to his peers right where they are, and inspires them higher.

To the previous reviewer: Zach has demonstrated the ability to work with others to accomplish social good without compromising the convictions that motivate him to act. That is to be commended, not criticized.

Great concept, but too preachy.......2007-06-04

When I first heard of Zach Hunter and sought out this book, I was very impressed by his cause and ambition. That remains unchanged after reading. He truely is a great role model for the up and coming generations. However, I was discouraged to find so much reference to religion, god's plan, and passages of scripture throughout the book. I understand this is where Zach must get his strength and values, however he needs to make it clear that even an athiest can be passionate for social justice. He should just stick to the historical and sociological implications of slavery, rather than try to convince the reader what a "true christian" he is.

Zach is my new hero.......2007-03-16

Never has such a bold message flowed with such simple power. Zach will change your life but more importantly it will change the lives of the hundreds of thousands of slaves living in despair. This is an easy-to-read and easy-to-live message filled with quotes, testimonies, and straight up wisdom from 15year old. Zach is one of my new heroes.

Porpoise Diving Life March Book Review.......2007-03-13

[...]

Staying true to our March 2007 PDL theme ([...]), I think it's safe to say that this young man has laid down his net and is moving headlong into some pretty powerful "follower-ship." Just in case you were wondering, Zach wants to end slavery and human trafficking in his lifetime. He's making a huge difference by creating awareness of a very dire crisis in our world, speaking before thousands of people and simply stepping up to the plate to do his part.

Zach's book is a very engaging and educational read, though it always feels true to the style of a normal 15-year-old. Yes, it's geared toward a younger generation, but the beauty of his writing style is that any normal kid his age (or any adult, for that matter) will see himself/herself as a potential agent of change. Because he's not lofty in his approach, what he's done comes off as doable for the rest of us too.

If you have kids, you'll want to buy this book--if only so that Zach can be an inspiration to them. And maybe in the process, we'll have more kids like him springing up to embrace a hurt world (I think everyone would agree that this would be a good thing). Even if you don't have kids, buy this book and you might be surprised to find his passion is contagious enough for you to change the world, too.

Average customer rating: Breaking the Curse It's Still Working BREAKING THE CURSE OF WILLIE LYNCH Removing the blinders C&B Reviewer Tanya Bates -

Breaking the Curse of Willie Lynch: The Science Of Slave Psychology Alvin Morrow Manufacturer: Rising Sun Publications ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback Motivational | Self-Help | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books General | Psychology & Counseling | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books Physiological Aspects | Psychology & Counseling | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books General | Sociology | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books Ethnic Studies | Special Groups | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books General | Psychology & Counseling | Health, Mind & Body | 4-for-3 Books Store | Stores | Books Motivational | Self-Help | Health, Mind & Body | 4-for-3 Books Store | Stores | Books General | Sociology | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | 4-for-3 Books Store | Stores | Books Ethnic Studies | Special Groups | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | 4-for-3 Books Store | Stores | Books All 4-for-3 Deals | 4-for-3 Books Store | Stores | Books Similar Items: The Willie Lynch Letter and the Making of a Slave Breaking the Chains of Psychological Slavery Willie Lynch: Why African Americans Have So Many Issues Kill Them Before They Grow: The Misdiagnosis of African American Boys in America's Classrooms The Willie Lynch Letter and The Destruction of Black Unity ASIN: 0972035214

Book Description

This book is a shocking eye opener. It penetrates the very heart of the divisions, that exist between Black men & women today. The author clearly describes in explicit detail, the mind enslaving techniques imposed on the African during North American slavery. Digging deep within the psyche "Breaking The Curse Of Willie Lynch" instructs the reader on how to reverse the phycosis. During a time where disorder, confusion, & psychological chaos in Black Male/Femal Relationships; comes a Book that gives clari- ty & internal direction. Help your community undo the self dividing, self defeating mind state!

Customer Reviews:

Breaking the Curse.......2007-09-17

Breaking the Curse of Willie Lynch is a profoundly insightful book. It is evident that a significant amount of research was done in preparation of this writing. I was in awe at how Mr. Alvin Morrow incorporated not only history but science nutrition and spiritually in the development and breaking of slavery. I have recommended this book to so many of my peers and look forward to ordering more copies for African-American children in the public school system. Too many Black and White children are unaware of the "true" history of this country and the causes and effects of slavery. I think this book would create at the least curiosity in the minds of any individual willing to learn more about the damage of slavery.

It's Still Working.......2007-05-13

The Willie Lynch method of controlling your slave: turn the old against the young, the light against the dark the male against the female and cause them to believe that you (the master) hold the key to their happiness. This science worked three hundred years ago and still works today. Fortunately more of the affected group are becoming enlighted and no longer believing in the science of slave psychology. But some have not seen the light. They do not read and do not listen. I wish that everybody no matter the ethnic identification will read this book. I believe this knowledge will help bring unity.

BREAKING THE CURSE OF WILLIE LYNCH.......2007-02-22

THIS BOOK LITERALLY CHANGED THE WAY A THOUGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING IN THIS COUNTRY. ALL BLACK PEOPLE IN THIS COUNTRY SUFFER FROM CURSE OF WILLIE LYNCH. HE DEVELOPED A PLAN TO CONTROL ALL BLACK PEOPLE FOR OVER 300 YEARS AND IT HAS BEEN A SUCCESS. WE STILL ARE CONTROLLED BY THIS CURSE AND MANY BLACK PEOPLE DON'T EVEN REALIZE IT. PLEASE GET INFORMED ON WHAT HAS TAKEN PLACE IN HISTORY AND ALWAYS BE AWARE OF WHAT IS GOING ON NOW IN THE 21ST CENTURY. SLAVEERY IS STILL GOING ON IN THIS COUNTRY, BUT NOW IT IS MORE MENTAL THAN PHYSICAL. WE HAVE BEEN TAUGHT TO HATE OURSELVES AND SETTLE FOR LESS ON EVERY ENDEAVOR IN LIFE. BLACK PEOPLE EVERYWHERE.. THIS IS NOT BY ACCIDENT OR BY MISTAKE. THIS IS THE WORLD WE LIVE IN TODAY AND WE ARE THE ONLY ONES WHO CAN CHANGE IT BY BEING EDUCATIONED AND GOING TO COLLEGE. THE AUTHOR OF THIS BOOK REALLY DID HIS HOMEWORK BECAUSE THE BOOK IS A STEP BY STEP METHOD OF CONTROL THAT WILLIE LYNCH DESIGNED HIMSELF. THE SAD THING ABOUT THIS BOOK IS THAT IT IS ALL TRUE AND IT STILL IS IN PRACTICE TODAY.

Removing the blinders.......2007-01-11

This is an excellent book, if you want to understand the terrible system
of slavery, and it's present day ramifications this is a must read book.




paradise Island

C&B Reviewer Tanya Bates - .......2006-05-28

Alvin Morrow explains the methods of the Willie Lynch Letter in terms that anyone can understand. The ability to break down these effects are uncanning. With each new chapter, Black men and women are able to see how these brutal mental conditioning methods first used in slavery, affect each Black person today. Also, honest solutions are provided to promote unity, allow for healing, and ultimately freedom from these damaging mentalities.

Rating: 5

Average customer rating: Worth it wonderful! Great Book super good book Beautiful!

Moses (Caldecott Honor Book) Carole Boston Weatherford Manufacturer: Jump At The Sun ProductGroup: Book Binding: Hardcover People of Color | Biographies | People & Places | Children's Books | Subjects | Books United States | Biographies | People & Places | Children's Books | Subjects | Books African-American | Multicultural Stories | People & Places | Children's Books | Subjects | Books 1800s | Fiction | United States | History & Historical Fiction | Children's Books | Subjects | Books General | Ages 4-8 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books General | Literature | Children's Books | Subjects | Books Similar Items: Flotsam (Caldecott Medal Book) Gone Wild (Caldecott Honor Book) The Higher Power of Lucky Rules (Newbery Honor Book) Penny from Heaven (Newbery Honor Book) ASIN: 0786851759 Release Date: 2006-08-08

Customer Reviews:

Worth it.......2007-10-01

This books illustrations tell a story within the story and is worth every penny spent.

wonderful!.......2007-08-25

Fantastic, amazing, stirring, engaging, empowering. I could go on... This book is a treasure & I am so glad to have it in our personal library. We bought this for my daughter and I thought it was so good I had to read it aloud to my husband that same night. Kadir Nelson is always spectacular in his illustrations, and he once again rises to the top in this book. The story is very moving, and with a few words it accomplishes the task of taking you inside the emotions and the questions, fears, and faith within Harriet Tubman's heart. I am extremely satisfied with this book & happy to give it to my daughter. I hope she shares it with her children some day.

Great Book .......2007-06-08

I am an elementary school teacher, mom of three and children's book lover. This book is visually enticing and a wonderful read. All of my children as well as my students loved it!

super good book .......2007-06-08

The cover says it all...and thanks to a great seller for fast shipping and smooth transaction!

Beautiful!.......2007-05-08

What I most appreciate about this book is the way it incorporates the role faith played in Harriet's life into the story of her leading daring escapes from slavery to freedom. Most of the history we learn in school attempts to secularize the truth about the people and events that we hold so dear, but this book does a phenomenal job in telling a more accurate, unbiased story of a remarkable woman. Illustrated by Kadir Nelson (who is GIFTED!!!!!), this is a welcome addition to any children's (or adult's, for that matter) library. I know am already collecting a slew of books

Average customer rating: Slavery and aftermath was certainly real... Willie Lynch Letter Willie Lynch letter/the making of a slave A Must Read Ignorance of the Truth in History is Everyone's Problem

The Willie Lynch Letter and the Making of a Slave William Lynch , and Kashif Malik Hassan-el Manufacturer: Frontline Distribution International ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback History | Subjects | Books | Africa | Americas | Ancient | Arctic & Antarctica | Asia | Audiobooks | Australia & Oceania | Books on CD | Books on Cassette | Europe | Gay & Lesbian | Historical Study | Large Print | Middle East | Military | Military Science | Russia | United States | World America | Race Relations | Sociology | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books African-American Studies | Special Groups | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books jp-unknown2 | Specialty Stores | Books Race Relations | Sociology | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | 4-for-3 Books Store | Stores | Books African-American Studies | Special Groups | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | 4-for-3 Books Store | Stores | Books All 4-for-3 Deals | 4-for-3 Books Store | Stores | Books Similar Items: Breaking the Curse of Willie Lynch: The Science Of Slave Psychology Breaking the Chains of Psychological Slavery The Mis-Education of The Negro Kill Them Before They Grow: The Misdiagnosis of African American Boys in America's Classrooms Willie Lynch: Why African Americans Have So Many Issues ASIN: 0948390530

Book Description

The Willie Lynch Letter and the Making of a Slave is a study of slave making. It discribes the rationale and the results of Anglo Saxon's ideas and methods of insuring the master/slave relationship.

Customer Reviews:

Slavery and aftermath was certainly real..........2007-08-09

I read this little book a while ago back when I was about 18-19 yrs old. It was very powerful and thought-provoking that such a plan could be conceived and carried out. But then again, Willie Lynch was not the first white person of tha time to come up with a plan to enslave blacks, both physically and mentally. Up until that point, I thought that if I just got my degree, got a job, and stayed out of trouble, everything would be ok (being a good NEGRO). Of course now I am more conscious about African studies. I was a bit troubled when before writing this review a couple of reviews that stated. I looked also at a wikipedia article that also mentioned that the actual letter itself may have been an internet hoax. I immediately went back to the pamphlet, which I still have, to see for myself. Now I did notice that the pamphlet is broken into about 5 main parts: 1) Introduction by Mr. Hassan-EL. (with references) 2) William Lynch letter (no reference) 3) Commentary on on Let's Make a Slave 4) Food for Thought from the Internet 5) Short attribute to Africans in America sailors Now I was disappointed that the author didn't reference the letter itself other than to mention that the letter was "Editor's repeat: This speech was delivered by a white slave owner, William Lynch, on the banks of James River in 1712." The argument is whether or not this letter/speech actually took place. The author doesn't cite where he found the letter or got the information of the letter. I did try to contact Lushena Books, and I was unsuccessful in reaching them for comment. In other words, I couldn't verify from the source that the letter/speech part of the pamplet was true or fiction. So I gave the review 4 stars. And it the letter was in fact a forgery, then it deserves even less stars. I do agree that it is important to make sure that when we bring facts to the table that they are actual facts (either based on experience or documented facts). So maybe there was no person named Willie Lynch or it was a pen name. Maybe the speech didn't take place in 1712. But what was described in the letter was certainly real. Pitting the 'house negro' against the 'field negro'. One good example of this was rewarding 'good slaves' for turning in runaways or revolters with either lighter work, monetary cashout, or even freed status. What I will do is attempt to gather actual names of people (besides the common names Christopher Columbus, Sir John Hawkins, George Washington, etc.) who conspired to enslave, murder, rape, etc Africans and Native Americans for their own financial or political gain from the before the 1800s. (Well I guess that would be a lot of people, eh?) Specifically those with a written or spoken plan against the Natives and Africans in America. Then I will revise this review :)

Willie Lynch Letter.......2007-03-14

The Willie Lynch letter is an interesting dig into the psychological control of slaves by slave masters. I am not sure of the validity of this letter, but it is an important part of studying American slavery. The book is a short read that can be easily read in one short sitting.

Willie Lynch letter/the making of a slave.......2007-01-12

Very important to the education of all. Willie Lynch letter has been questionned as to its actual authenticy, but no matter because the content is historically correct and the attitudes remain to this day. That is unfortunate, however, it's value to all Americans changing their attitudes and behaviour have great global implications.

A Must Read.......2006-08-20

This book should bread by every young black male in the United States. Some have proclaimed that it is false but the information is essential to the growth of black males. It sheds light on some of the condition that we face in this country.

Ignorance of the Truth in History is Everyone's Problem.......2006-06-04

First, to Andre M. "brnn64" - - your response was a result of not reading and knowing your history. And, to to all the others who described this as "Fiction", and/or recently written. This material was a "manual" - - a guide actually used by Southerners to learn how to handle their slaves. It may be one of the reasons why slavery lasted as long as it did, and why so much of the same attitudes prevail today. Unfortunately, I have heard many whites say "why should I be penalized for something my ancestors did back then - - well, the answer to that is that "you are still reaping and enjoying the benefits of what your ancestors did back then. AND - - they are ancestors to us all - - with the racial mixing which resulted - - making us all related to each other in some way. But that is another issue.

Some"smart" caucasian thought he was an expert in breaking slaves and thus, wrote his "letter" to other slave owners as an instruction manual. Since we live what we learn - - we have two forms of this mentality present today - - the mental conditioning that has spread in the African American community generationally today that makes us think blacks are not as smart as the white person - that whites are smarter, better, superior, etc. On the other hand, the mental conditioning has spread in the white community generationally, that blacks are dumber, slower, inferior.

The letter gave specific instructions on the process to use, with the major one still affecting our educational systems now - - that if you keep blacks uneducated, you keep the control. Unfortunately, this has backfired, and being uneducated affects everyone.

The overriding factor in this situation is that all of us should look at this document as an example of what we want to get away from, what we want never to happen again - - so that documents like this one can become fiction - - only written in someone's imagination, and not become a reality.

Average customer rating: change is possible How a group of activists changed the world Useful but one-sided study of the abolition of slavery A Familiar Tale Told With Verve Wonderful writing, with some obvious bias

Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves Adam Hochschild Manufacturer: Mariner Books ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback General | World | History | Subjects | Books General | England | Europe | History | Subjects | Books Social History | Historical Study | History | Subjects | Books General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books Similar Items: King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya Though The Heavens May Fall: The Landmark Trial That Led To The End Of Human Slavery Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution ASIN: 0618619070

Book Description

From the author of the widely acclaimed King Leopold's Ghost comes the taut, gripping account of the world's first grass-roots human rights movementthe fight to free the British Empire's slaves. In early 1787, twelve mena printer, a lawyer, a clergyman, and others united by their hatred of slaverycame together in a London printing shop and, combining fiery devotion with cool practicality, began one of the most brilliantly organized campaigns of all time. Masterfully stoking public opinion, the movement's leaders pioneered a variety of techniques used by citizens" movements ever since, from consumer boycotts to posters and lapel buttons to celebrity endorsements. A deft account of the precipitous rise of this popular crusade and its fierce, powerful enemies, Bury the Chains delivers all the drama, sweep, and surprise of Hochschild's previous histories.

Customer Reviews:

change is possible.......2007-06-21

Beginning in 1555 and lasting for 350 years, the British empire bought, sold, and enslaved about 11 million African people. This required some 35,000 voyages along the so-called triangular trade route: buying slaves from African slave traders along the continent's west coast, depositing their human cargo mainly in the Caribbean to work on Britain's sugar plantations but also to ports from Quebec to Chile, and then returning to England with imports for the empire. At the end of the 18th century slavery was hardly unusual; it was the rule for most peoples and places on earth. What was unusual was that in the space of about fifty years Britain outlawed the slave trade, and then a while later slavery itself (abolition was one thing, genuine emancipation another).

How did the unthinkable happen? How did an economic system that was so deeply embedded, so profitable, and so taken for granted as normal by almost everyone, disappear so swiftly? Hochschild describes the abolition movement as "one of the most ambitious and brilliantly organized citizens's movements of all time." Many of the political means that we enjoy today were perfected back then-- investigative journalism into the real conditions of slave life, sugar boycotts, 519 petitions to the British parliament with 390,000 signatures, public debates, media campaigns, and every day activism. Progressive women's groups far ahead of their time, missionaries (despised by the plantation owners), British evangelicals, Methodists, and especially the culturally marginal Quakers all provided principled moral argument. The herculean efforts of Thomas Clarkson, the parliamentary leadership of William Wilberforce, and the legal advocacy of the eccentric Granville Sharp were essential.

But Hochschild is careful to avoid the paternalism of self-congratulatory, aristocratic benevolence. After all, when all was said and done, it was the slave-owning planters who were reimbursed for their "losses" by the British government and not the slaves. Whenever possible he allows the slaves to speak for themselves, like the remarkable Olaudah Equiano, whose 500-page best-selling autobiography Interesting Narrative provided a first person narrative of what is still considered the best account of slave life (and is still available today); and Quobna Ottobah Cugoano's Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species. He describes at great length the numerous slave revolts in which fearless and skilled leaders like Toussaint L'Overture led slaves to free themselves and force the British to face reality, however reluctant they were to do so. In these violent and vicious revolts the most beleaguered people on earth defeated the world's two greatest military powers, France and Britain, in Haiti and Jamaica.

Bury the Chains joins Hochschild's previous book King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa (1999) about Belgium's plunder of the Congo. The stories are depressing but inspiring, for however dark these histories, however deep our national complicity, the narratives remind us that we are nor fated to accept injustice to our fellow human beings. Whether in Iraq or Darfur, whether with malaria or HIV-AIDS, the abolition of slavery reminds us that effective movements of genuine social justice are possible.

How a group of activists changed the world.......2007-05-07

Hochschild tells the story of how a small group of Quakers, Anglicans and Methodists brought about the end of the slave trade. It is a story of enormous moral courage against an accepted, and economically powerful interest, and also the story of great organizational skill. The product boycotts, public opinion campaigns, demonstrations and political pressure that the campaigners invented at the end of the eighteenth century are still the mainstays of civil society. It is a wonderful irony that Napoleon's reintroduction of slavery in the French empire was the final, clinching argument for its abolition in the English one.

Useful but one-sided study of the abolition of slavery.......2007-04-12

The British Empire, so praised by our current rulers, was at root a slave empire, held together by slave-trading between slave colonies. Between 1660 and 1807, British-owned ships carried 3.5 million Africans, 40,000 a year, across the Atlantic, more than any other country carried. British property owners were the world's chief slavers.

The British ruling class, not the nation, owned the slave ships, the slaves and the plantations. British workers did not control their own labour power, never mind own other people. William Cobbett noted that in 1832, "white men are sold, by the week and the month all over England. Do you call such men free, on account of the colour of their skin?" Black chattel slavery and white wage slavery were parts of the same system.

The abolitionists ignored the eighteen-hour-days worked by children in Bradford's mills. They backed the laws that attacked trade unions and suspended Habeas Corpus. They funded their foreign philanthropy by increasing the exploitation of their white slaves at home. The trade unionist Oates said, "The great emancipators of negro slaves were the great drivers of white slaves. The reason was obvious. The labour of the black slaves was the property of others. The labour of the white slaves they considered their own." As the Derbyshire Courier noted, "We make laws to provide protection to the Negro: let us not be less just to the children of England."

Bronterre O'Brien wrote, "What are called the working classes are the slave populations of the civilized countries." From birth, they were mortgaged to the owners of capital and land, only nominally owning their own labour power, forced into wage slavery. Britain's property owners extracted far more profit from their 16 million wage slaves than from their million chattel slaves. O'Brien again, "We pronounce there to be more slavery in England than in the West Indies ... because there is more unrequited labour in England."

The empire was based on exploiting wage slaves and used the free movement of goods, capital and labour to extend its exploitation. The wars of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries were fought to keep, or add to, Britain's imperial and slave-trading conquests. For example, in the 1790s, British slave owners united with French slave owners to try to eat Haiti's revolution. The government sent more soldiers to the West Indies, and lost more, than it had when trying to crush America's independence. Of the 89,000 sent, 45,000 died, as did 19,000 sailors. France lost 50,000 dead. Haiti's freed slaves defeated the armies of the two greatest slaver powers, but the British forces laid waste to the island, destroying almost all its sugar plantations.

Slavery lost its former importance to the metropolitan economy. The slave colonies took an ever smaller share of Britain's exports. From 1820 the slump in the West Indies grew worse and worse. In 1832, an official wrote that the West Indies system "is becoming so unprofitable when compared with the expense that for this reason only it must at no distant time be nearly abandoned."

The years 1830-32 also saw the Swing Rising in Britain, revolution in France, a major slave revolt in Jamaica and the parliamentary Reform Act. All led to the 1833 Slave Emancipation Act, which freed the 540,000 slaves in the British West Indies. Parliament gave the planters £20 million (a billion pounds in today's money) as compensation for the loss of their slaves. The working class paid the money in tax, though they pointed out that the Church should have paid, as it owned so many slaves itself and as its priests justified the slavery of both black and white, at home and abroad. The Empire then imposed another form of servitude on the `freed' slaves of the West Indies - compulsory six-year `apprenticeships'. Later in the century, it used indentured labour, workers forcibly imported from India.

Slavery had been profitable in the 18th century; abolition was even more profitable in the 19th. The effort `to stop the foreign slave trade' was designed to damage rival empires and to protect the West Indies planters, now denied annual slave imports, from competition by sugar producers Cuba and Brazil, still reliant on buying slaves. The suppression of the slave trade on Africa's West and East coasts necessitated ever closer control of West and East Africa, at first by private companies like the British East Africa Company, later by the Empire itself. Abolition was a weapon to expand the empire.

Throughout the century, the Empire continued to steal people, land and resources from Africa, reinforcing slavery there and killing millions of African people. The Empire continued to contribute to and profit from the slave trade well into the twentieth century. As Marx wrote, we see in slavery "what the bourgeoisie makes of itself and of the labourer, wherever it can, without restraint, model the world after its own image."

Abolitionism was an early form of the fake internationalism we see today - LiveAid, Live Earth, Blairite calls to intervene everywhere, Oxfam's delusions about Britain being `a force for good on the world stage'. We should be satisfied if Britain was a force for good in Britain.

A Familiar Tale Told With Verve.......2007-03-03

"Bury the Chains" has little new data, but it is still a brilliantly written synthesis of a wide range of material on British antislavery. The subject is larger and more diffuse than the author's earlier "King Leopold's Ghost," but the outlook is similar, and appropriately so. Hochschild represents the neo-abolitionist perspective on slavery: it assumes the centrality of moral issues and the necessity for reforms, and reconstructs the world of antislavery advocates and slaves while also trying to understand the institution's supporters. The author balances several factors culminating in the end of the Old Slavery: humanitarian activism, structural economic changes, and not least slave revolts and revolution. Ultimately he gives primacy to the influence of humanitarianism. The book is rather conventional, even old-fashioned in asserting individual agency in history, though there is due attention given to more impersonal economic developments. A strong chapter on British women consumers as abolitionists adds a refreshingly different dimension to the story. Tragically, there is now a burgeoning slavery promoted by globalization. This New Slavery sadly returns abolitionism to the realm of current events, and enables future historians to shed more light on earlier antislavery movements. L. Sanneh, "Abolitionists Abroad" breaks new ground on African antislavery efforts; K. Bales, "Disposable People" is most enlightening on the New Slavery.

Wonderful writing, with some obvious bias.......2007-02-18

Hochschild has written a compelling, provocative book that I heartily enjoyed. In addition to good narratives and compelling anecdotes, he shines as he tries to make the social conventions and economic realities of the time period comprehensible today.
Mr. Hochschild is of the opinion that Wilberforce has received way too much credit for what was in reality a broad-based, complex movement of many decades. I have no problem with this and I respect his research and credentials. But he does seem to have an ax to grind with Christianity. No, I am not someone naive enough to hold that Christians can do/ have not done any wrong. But while Hochschild sometimes go to great lengths to make the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries comprehensible, he does not make this same effort for the Christians of that era.
Most notably, he singles out John Newton, author of Amazing Grace, for withering commentary. While I am not here to defend John Newton or assert he had no blind spots (like so many people of his day), I do think Mr. Hochschild trashes him unfairly. Christianity is not an instantaneous transformation but a lifelong process. The fact that John Newton left the slave trade, became a pastor but did not become a leader in the abolition movement somehow is incomprehensible to the author who infers that Newton's religion was a blind and hypocritical sham. This is most glaring sore point in an otherwise wonderful book that I am very glad to have read.

Average customer rating: Calculations are only as good as your numbers Pants on fire? Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed. Very Interesting History as Science Fiction

History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1) Anatoly Fomenko Manufacturer: Mithec ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback Chinese | Ethnic & National | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books Irish | Ethnic & National | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books Japanese | Ethnic & National | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books Women | Specific Groups | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books Augustine, Saint | ( A ) | People, A-Z | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books Doctors & Medicine | Humor | Entertainment | Subjects | Books Lawyers & Criminals | Humor | Entertainment | Subjects | Books Love, Sex & Marriage | Humor | Entertainment | Subjects | Books Assyria, Babylonia & Sumer | Ancient | History | Subjects | Books Early Civilization | Ancient | History | Subjects | Books General | Ancient | History | Subjects | Books Historiography | Historical Study | History | Subjects | Books General | World | History | Subjects | Books General | Asian American | United States | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books Asian American | Poetry | United States | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books French | Erotica | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books Victorian | Erotica | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books Epic | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books German | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books Russian | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books Spanish | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books Chinese | Classics | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books Conspiracy Theories | Current Events | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books War on Drugs | Crime & Criminals | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books English (All) | Dictionaries & Thesauruses | Reference | Subjects | Books Arabic | Foreign Language | Dictionaries & Thesauruses | Reference | Subjects | Books Armenian | Foreign Language | Dictionaries & Thesauruses | Reference | Subjects | Books Czech | Foreign Language | Dictionaries & Thesauruses | Reference | Subjects | Books Greek | Foreign Language | Dictionaries & Thesauruses | Reference | Subjects | Books Hungarian | Foreign Language | Dictionaries & Thesauruses | Reference | Subjects | Books Japanese | Foreign Language | Dictionaries & Thesauruses | Reference | Subjects | Books Korean | Foreign Language | Dictionaries & Thesauruses | Reference | Subjects | Books Norwegian | Foreign Language | Dictionaries & Thesauruses | Reference | Subjects | Books Persian & Farsi | Foreign Language | Dictionaries & Thesauruses | Reference | Subjects | Books Polish | Foreign Language | Dictionaries & Thesauruses | Reference | Subjects | Books Portuguese | Foreign Language | Dictionaries & Thesauruses | Reference | Subjects | Books Romanian | Foreign Language | Dictionaries & Thesauruses | Reference | Subjects | Books Russian | Foreign Language | Dictionaries & Thesauruses | Reference | Subjects | Books Swedish | Foreign Language | Dictionaries & Thesauruses | Reference | Subjects | Books Turkish | Foreign Language | Dictionaries & Thesauruses | Reference | Subjects | Books Science | Dictionaries & Thesauruses | Reference | Subjects | Books Online Research | Genealogy | Reference | Subjects | Books Native American | Earth-Based Religions | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books General | Science | Subjects | Books General | History & Philosophy | Science | Subjects | Books History of Science | History & Philosophy | Science | Subjects | Books Magic & Wizards | Fantasy | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Subjects | Books Sailor Moon | Popular Characters | Children's Books | Subjects | Books Pilates | Exercise & Fitness | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books History | Fashion | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books Similar Items: History: Fiction or Science? Chronology 2 (Chronology) History: Fiction or Science? Astronomical methods as applied to chronology. Ptolemy's Almagest. Chronology III Discovering the Mysteries of Ancient America: Lost History And Legends, Unearthed And Explored Before the Pharaohs: Egypt's Mysterious Prehistory They Cast No Shadows: A Collection of Essays on the Illuminati, Revisionist History, and Suppressed Technologies ASIN: 2913621058

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Customer Reviews:

Calculations are only as good as your numbers.......2007-08-03

Yes, we can all agree that mainstream history is nearly 100% BS due to politics, economics, ego, problems with dating techniques, and various conspiracies. Agreed. But, I've been researching the distinct possibility that human history (in terms of civilizations) are much more ancient than we've been told, so coming across this book was very interesting to me. I wondered how Fomenko could be wrong (if at all) because he is very persuasive in his presentations. Then it dawned on me. If at previous times in prehistory, due to the various catastrophies that are well documented (comets, asteroids, planetary disruptions, plasma discharge, pole reversals, etc) the Earth was in a different position in relation to the sun, different tilt on its axis, different orbit, different rotation (in terms of velocity and DIRECTION), and the continents were in different positions, then would this not cause the ancients to see the sky (constellations) differently? In other words, is Fomenko making erronious assumptions about the physics of the Earth in pre-history, which then corrupt his data with regards to dating the relevant astrology? The last event to seriously disrupt our planet occured roughly 3500 years ago, according to other good researchers, so is it possible Fomenko has been confused by this? The vastly different physics of our planet in the not so distant past may explain this confusion, which is not to say the "mainstream" version of history is correct; on the contrary. I am not an expert in these fields, but wanted to see if this idea could spark discussion.

Pants on fire?.......2007-07-19

Will people ever read before spamming? Yes, Jesuits could not rewrite world history alone, they had help. Anyway, Dr Prof Acad A.Fomenko does not point to jesuits as the driving force of world wide history manipulation in published volumes 1,2,3;, actually he barely mentions the poor devils. Check it with 'Search inside' feature, please. China is rarely mentioned either, in fact, Dr Fomenko is completely eurocentric. Right, his theory contradicts all mainstream schools of history, because in their actual state they are all built on blatantly erroneus chronology. You don't need a mysterious cabal (conspiracy) to falsify history, the falsification is its modus operandi. It is inherent to history(ians) to falsify (distort) events, as it is inherent to humans to boast as it is inherent to power (authority) to legimize itself by referrring to glorious past made to its own order. Dr Prof Fomenko and team have identified scores of instances of such manipulation in Russian, European, etc.. history, and delivered valid statistical proof thereof. His own 'reconstruction' is completely another story. Forget c14 as a valid method of dating. W.Libby has initially discovered a brilliant method of INDEPENDENT dating. Too bad, c14 method has become a joke after a forced marrige with dendrochronology with consensual chronological scale inbuilt. Radiocarbon method can't stand blind tests, but is so very productive as a rubberstamp.

Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed. .......2007-04-09

There is no doubt that history as most know it is a sham, & institution's version of History both University & Church is fradulent & inaccurate. Everything was established with an agenda, The real "Dark Ages" are now when we have access to incredible amounts of information past authorities & more important 'common folk' didn't have but our institutions & educators are slow to evolve because of what has ignorantly & arrogantly been taught for too long. This is on many subjects not just Chronology.

For anyone to question "Why would a Mathematician have anything credible to say of History?" The answer is from Dr. Fomenko's preface in the book: "It would be worthwhile to remind the reader that in the XVI-XVII century Chronology was considered to be a subdivision of Mathematics." These volumes could possibly be some of the most important works to date & should be read by everyone with an interest in History, especially professors & educators who have a duty to the public. I have read both books & must say that 'Chronology 1' has some very eye opening & revolutionary information. Even if these volumes are part true the implications are profound & opens the doors to further investigations & questions which must be done. I speak several different lanquages & must say the logic Dr. Fomenko uses with "inflection" of words & words being read from left to right in one region & right to left in another then written backwards, the removal of vowels & get down to basics of words, or different cities & locations having the same name etc. is correct. Vowel usage has always been optional & varied, actually complicating linquistics & study. The first thing one has to understand is that words never had a fixed spelling in history like we do now, the spelling of words was mutable & regional, as well as names & titles of people were vast, varied & changed, NOTHING WAS FIXED or understood linear. Matters of Life & Death as well as financial profiteering yesterday & today were & are made with ignorant, illogical & conspiratorial views of history & reality, it's time people get closer to the Truth & society collectively grow up.

Very Interesting.......2007-03-07

It is a good proposal and I believe it will mature into something even better in the future. I think it deserves to be read.

History as Science Fiction.......2007-01-10

Anatoly Fomenko has written a very intriguing book, full of pictures, charts, and computer 'proof' of his thesis: backwards of AD900 we don't really know what happened or when. Between AD900 and AD1600 there is more certainty, but there is still a lot of fuzzy ground, and things don't get reliable until we get past the 1600's where the printing press made it very difficult for the perpetrators of this timeline manipulation to change anything that had been committed to print. The Dark Ages did not happen. Books were burned for a reason. One organization has doubled the actual length of its existence by expanding the real chronology. Read why.

I had always wondered why Christ died about AD33 and yet men waited until the 11th century to form the Knights Templar, the Cathars, etc and go after the Holy Land by force. Why the 1000 year gap? Turns out there wasn't more than a 10-12 year gap and he proves it using astronomy. This also implies that the planet is not as old as we have been told, and current Christian and other creationist scientists are already championing that idea without being aware of Fomenko's book. The two groups, creationist scientists and the Russian mathematical analysts corroborate each other. Fascinating.

Of course, all this flies in the face of what we have been told traditionally is the 'proper' chronology of western civilization, and most readers will experience 'cognitive dissonance' in reading this book. It means that our history going backwards from AD1600 becomes progressively more incorrect and unreliable until it cannot be trusted at all... in the space of 700-800 years.

Naturally, the curious, open-minded reader will want to know WHO did this, WHY, and did any of the events we think of as really ancient ever happen?
Dr. Fomenko is a respected scientist/mathematician at Moscow State University who has already answered these questions to the satisfaction of his initially skeptical colleagues. Most of them are now believers, a few still refuse to believe (the usual diehards), and of course the western press has ignored Fomenko's work -- for obvious reasons when you read the book. The ones who perpetrated this chronology ruse have a lot to answer for. They are still with us. That's why this book is a well-kept secret.

I gave the book a 4-star rating because I was unable to check out some of his claims; those I checked were as he said. But if even 1/3 of his claims are true, this punches a big hole in what we think is our history, the meaning of western civilization, our educational process (for repeating the ruse as gospel), and the trustworthiness of the organization that perpetrated this ruse, well-intentioned or not.

This book relates to current research into a Young Earth paradigm, to John Keel's discoveries about our planet, and Fr Malachi Martin's insights (in his now out-of-print books). We are indeed sheep who are manipulated and kept ignorant -- for a reason. While knowing what these men have to say may be the "booby prize" (as in: 'what can you do with this knowledge?'), it will provide interesting reading. Didn't someone say: "...and the Truth will set you free."?? For you to judge if this book contains the truth.

Books:

1. Helen Keller: From Tragedy to Triumph (The Childhood of Famous Americans Series)
2. History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
3. History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
4. History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
5. History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
6. History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
7. History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
8. History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
9. Hitler And Stalin: Parallel Lives
10. How to Be Happy All the Time

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