Tag Archives: bookreviews

Review: Ma Bible des Huiles Essentielles, by Danièle Festy

Ma Bible Des Huiles EssentiellesMa Bible Des Huiles Essentielles by Danièle Festy

My rating and review was initially on WorldCat: 5 of 5 stars, because this book shows the important knowledge gathered by women, often ignored by the male establishment, yet essential for human development, like what Project Do Better works to help us all learn, in various stages, both for public health, and for that public store of knowledge held in libraries of all kinds, in various languages.

Huiles Essentielles, huiles végétales qui viennent avec et même les voies d’administration pour chaque maladie ! On ne peut pas terminer de lire ce livre, cars c’est trop bon, trop plein et trop utile !  (p. 448: sinusit, mais pas de EU. radie…)

(Sorry, not sure if this book has been translated in to English, but I certainly hope that it has, by now!)

Essential oils, vegetable oils that go with them, and even the best ways to take each oil for every illness! One can never finish reading this book because it is too good, packed full, and useful! (good for sinus infections…)

Read, Write, Run, Teach !

ShiraDest
originally posted 12 February, 12016 HE

Dear Readers, do you have ideas to share on learning, especially multiple #LanguageLearning, on-going education and empathy-building, to #EndPoverty, #EndHomelessness, & achieve full potential for All HumanKind?

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Click here to read about:

Learning Empathy Through Film and TV Reviews,

Independent or Classroom Learning via Holistic High School and College Algebra Lesson Plans,

           or Learning With Long Range Plans, & Historical Fiction Serial Writing

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BsCs

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Review Robin Hood le proscrit by Alexandre Dumas

      dumas_by_nadar2c_1855  I didn’t know that Dumas, Sr., had written about Robin Hood, nor that this book was the second of the two.  So, I may write a fuller review of this book after reading the first one, and perhaps after reading this one again.  /  Je ne savais pas que Dumas, Père,    avait écrit sur Robin Hood, et non plus que ce livre-ci c’est le deuxième dû par. Donc, mon revu viens après que j’écoute le premier, et peut-être aussi une deuxième écoute de celui-ci.

Listened to via Cocotte, a very good reader, on litterature audio /
Je l’ecoute, bien lu par Cocotte ici: https://www.litteratureaudio.com/livr…”

    It is your duty to marry…the rich need cannon fodder!  /  Se marier est obligatoire … les riches ont besoin de chair à canon !
/
(my comment, btw, that marriage is obligatory … the rich need cannon fodder!)

Interesting: a bit like the return of the headless Knight in the King Arthur stories… / Interesant: c’est un peu comment le retur du Chevalier sans tete des histoires du Roi Artur…
/
Interesing: it’s a bit like the return of the Headless Knight from the stories of King Arthur…”

 “Le roi regard et mesure les belles femmes et fille, c’est stupide. Est-ce que nous sommes des chevaux, faites pour passer devant les hommes pour faire voir notre beauté, et non pour avoir des pensées, des idées, des projets propres, dignes d’etre cru intelligentes ?”
January 5, 2023 –
93.0% “tire d’arc aux fleche aux mort, tout comme le Roi Artur
/
an arrow loosed at the time of death, just like King Arthur”
January 6, 2023 –
99.0% “Oops ! Je ne savais pas que ce livre etait le ‘sequel’ aux premier: Robin Hood, Le Prince des voleurs, lu par Cocotte.

alexandre_dumas_pere

https://www.litteratureaudio.com/livr…”

Shira

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Click here to read, if you like:

B5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli AnnemLupin, or La Casa de Papel/Money Heist Reviews

Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBetter.  This work is my personal way (as opposed to founding the Project, overall) of contributing to building tools that can help increase empathy and compassion in our world.  Story, as part of how we see our world, helps us make sense of and define our actions in this world.  And remember how important story is also as part of this project. Let’s Do Better.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

ShiraDest

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Review: John Brown, by W. E. Du Bois

    “The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.”

web_dubois_1918

     This was the refrain that Du Bois repeated,  particularly in the last chapter of this surprising biography. I listened to it, and upon finishing, immediately had the urge to read much of it over again at once, in print, especially the beautiful citations of poetry from the Hebrew scriptures, and the last sections in which Du Bois points up the legacy left by Brown which continued into his day, and indeed, even into our own day. Du Bois shows how the collusion of industrial interests and the racial interpretation of social relations, applied to Darwin’s work as a means of using the power developed during Brown’s time, the same power that drove him, a good and principled man, out of business, to prevent the existing hegemony from being changed, actually works to the detriment of all humanity. He ties up the implications of John Brown’s life’s work versus that interpretation of Darwin as a negation of the eugenics programs and all that led to those programs. Brown, much to my surprise, was described as a thoughtful man, initially stern, but eventually becoming a kind man, one who abhorred the shedding of blood, and believed deeply in the mutual obligations and respect due to every human being. Du Bois shows how the beginnings of Brown’s plan were intended to be as non-violent as possible, and only reluctantly evolved into the raid on the federal arsenal, while remaining a project of killing only when absolutely necessary. Witnesses describe a community with by-laws drawn up to run much as the first century Christians are described as living in the book of Acts, and of Brown’s insistence upon gentlemanly and respectful conduct, even to captured prisoners. This made him, it seems, a man well ahead of his times. But, also a bit of a dreamer. Du Bois describes Brown as attempting to convince other leaders, but finding them more skeptical of his plans. I was very impressed with Du Bois delving into military science to show that, had every member of Brown’s group acted in strict accordance with his plan, the raid on the Armory would very likely have succeeded. Yet, a plan that depends on each man acting selflessly is, it seems, the plan of a dreamer. By the time I had finished Du Bois’ devastating final chapter, I felt not only moved for the dream and strongly felt duty of Brown, but also for the life of honest and courageous integrity that was laid down as a willing martyr for the cause of Abolition. He used his trial as a means of putting the very South herself, and her Peculiar Institution in particular, on trial, quite successfully. Why are we not taught about the details of this trial, and his words at that trial, in school? This biography should be required reading in every High School history classroom in the United States.

Please, please, please, read this book, perhaps starting with the final chapter.

But read it.  Twice!!
w.e.b._dubois_mary_white_ovington
My reading updates follow:
listening via https://librivox.org/john-brown-by-w-…

British wool tariffs nearly brought the US to consider invading, around 1830?? Wow. I’ve never heard of that, nor of the fact that Oberlin college was given land in Virginia.

John Brown as a bank director? Who would have thought of this? Ruined, like many, by the Panic of 1837

“Organized economic aggression” by business highwaymen literally forced a good man, John Brown, out of business because he refused to abandon his good principles!

and incredible, of all the poetic language Du Bois uses: “…a great Black phalanx” of escaped slaves and Free People of Color welcoming them into the “cities of refuge” up north and organizing Colored resistance. And John Brown’s family sheltering …

The reverend Lovejoy, from The Simpsons, is named for the murdered Abolitionist preacher Rev. Lovejoy? Who knew!

This murder, and being kicked out of their church for giving their nice seats to the Negro family attending the meeting, catalyzed Brown’s 1839 knowledge and support of the Abolitionist movement. In fact, white brutality even against white people planted the seeds.

Section 7: So, Brooks caned Sumner over Missouri’s lie about Kansas Territory, and the Civil War actually began in Lawrence, KA.

Shameless forcing of a faux election by Missourians of Kansas lawmakers, and the US Army helping the Southerners with guns and Bowie knives, and canon!? But despite the free-state majority, KA, nearly became a slave-state.

Ch. 7, The Swamp of the Swan, end of Section 8:

This militia formed by Captain John Brown is like David, as he says, but not a band of thugs, as that of David was: no profanity, no corporal punishment, no unkind or ungentlemanly behavior. Wow. Feeling themselves like a family, said his men. These were the Anla’Shok. “All great reforms…based on generous…”

Incredible.
How his image has been distorted.

… and why not admit women?

He wrote and had adopted an actual Constitution for his followers down South.

Preamble here: https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/td

Postponement of action, weeping to Schubert…

An indictment on the system of slavery, Brown’s speech on the stand ends with
“Farewell. Farewell.”

Du Bois calls his trial “the mightiest Abolition document that America has known” is right, and a beautiful one, by his last words to his family.

“The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.” Clearly, Du Bois wanted this phrase to stay with the reader, and he uses it to devastating effect, particularly in the last section, “The Legacy of John Brown.”

Absolutely stunning look at both a deliberately misrepresented man, and a legacy that remains with us, to this very sad day.

Incredible.
Simply incredible.

Shira

Action Items:

1.) Share your thoughts, please.

2.) Write a story, post or comment that uses those thoughts.

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Click here to read, if you like:

B5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli AnnemLupin, or La Casa de Papel/Money Heist Reviews

Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBetter.  This work is my personal way (as opposed to founding the Project, overall) of contributing to building tools that can help increase empathy and compassion in our world.  Story, as part of how we see our world, helps us make sense of and define our actions in this world.  And remember how important story is also as part of this project. Let’s Do Better.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

ShiraDest

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Review: Les Mille et Un Fantômes, By Alexandre Dumas

    (English is right below …)

     « Ah ça ! me dit Legros (le bourreau) en me regardant fixement, vous croyez donc qu’ils sont morts, parce qu’on les a guillotinés, vous? … vous ne leur voyez pas tordre les yeux et grincer des dents pendant cinq minutes encore après l’exécution. … voyez-vous, qui ne veulent pas se décider à mourir, et je ne serais pas étonné qu’un jour quelqu’une d’elles se mit à crier : Vive le roi ! […] »

Il m’a fallait lire ce livre, apres avoir vu cet exerpt, et je n’etait pas decu ! / I had to read this book, after seeing this excerpt, and I was not disappointed!

C’était très intéressant, ce livre des histoires en forme d’un “frame”. Je l’ai écoutée sur le lit. / The stories in this book were very interesting, in the form of a “Frame” Story.

Listened to via:

https://www.litteratureaudio.com/livr…

    alexandre_dumas_pere  This was actually a far better book than I had expected.  The story told by the narrator ends up being a series of stories, but this is not a mere anthology, as some reviewers describe it.  The stories are all part of the larger overall story, even if they are separate shorts.  Le Bracelet de cheveux/ The Hair Bracelet, for instance, runs straight into the story of La Dame Blanche/The Pale Lady, and they flow together very well, with each story leading into one more macabre than the last  he stories have more in common than, say, those within the frame of the 1001 Nights, for example, though they are also less complex, they remain engaging.  The tragedy of many of the stories, especially that of The Pale Lady, starts in the very beginning of the set up of the frame, with the author again, as in The Corsican Brothers, armoiries-corses  inserting himself into the story, amusingly enough.  In fact, the timing of the French rendition of the 1001 Nuits makes me wonder if that frame story inspired this one.

    dumas_by_nadar2c_1855

Shira

Action Items:

Dear Readers, what are your thoughts on this book, and Mr. Dumas’ works in general?

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Click here to read, if you like:

B5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli AnnemLupin, or La Casa de Papel/Money Heist Reviews

Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBetter.  This review is my personal way (as opposed to founding the Project, overall) of contributing to building tools that can help increase empathy and compassion in our world.  Story, as part of how we see our world, helps us make sense of and define our actions in this world.  And remember how important story is also as part of this project. Let’s Do Better.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

ShiraDest

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Review: The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the United States of America, 1638-1870, by W. E. B. Du Bois,  

  The 1969 introduction by Norman Klein gives an interesting overview of the strengths, weaknesses, and unique contributions, particularly by raising awareness of then-to-fore undiscussed issues, in DuBois’ original thesis.

DuBois’ own Apologia to his work, written in 1954 (some 60 years after initial publication of his thesis?), is a fascinating read, given his insights into his own early work as a young man, and thoughts on that work, viewed from the distance of those years. Very nice read.

The work itself, because the research is now both dated and superseded by other work, I did not read in detail, but skimmed for correlation if needed later, with the Slavery sub-project on Wikitree, of which I am no longer part.
Shira
originally posted on 27 Feb. 12017 HE
(the Holocene Calendar)

 web_dubois_1918

   I’ve just finished listening to Du Bois’  w.e.b._dubois_mary_white_ovington  biography of John Brown, thanks to Neatnik’s recommendation, and am still digesting it in order to write a decent review.  Wow, what a story, what a legacy, and what an incredibly sad mistreatment and twisting of a good and thinking man’s reputation by men twisted by an evil system.  This slave system which they upheld, and which in turn further corrupted them.

Shira

Action Item:

 Share your thoughts on this work, and the continuing relevance of it, today, please.

*****************

Click here to read, if you like:

B5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli AnnemLupin, or La Casa de Papel/Money Heist, and El Ministerio del Tiempo Reviews

Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBetter.  This review is my personal way (as opposed to founding the Project, overall) of contributing to building tools that can help increase empathy and compassion in our world.  Story, as part of how we see our world, helps us make sense of and define our actions in this world.  And remember how important story is also as part of this project. Let’s Do Better.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

ShiraDest

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Review: The Talented Tenth, by W. E. B. Du Bois, on GED Lesson Plan Set Day 49/67  

     This essay came as a bit of a shock, given how much my Pre-Engineering classmates and I were told that we had a responsibility, as part of the talented tenth, to give back to the community. The phrase was also part of my grandparents’ generational idea of Black uplift, and being “a credit to the race.” So, seeing just how men-only and elite focused this work is should never have shocked me, but it did. Every school assembly started/ended with a reminder of the Dunbar legacy, in DC, and Lift Every Voice and Sing, as a reminder that we had a duty to give back, and to lead. But it was never this strikingly clear just how elitist that idea could be, until I finally read the essay that popularized the phrase, but which I was again shocked to learn that Du Bois did not originate. Nevertheless, much of what he said remains valid, even to this day, sadly.  Especially what he says about the need for rigorous education, but I would extend that need to all citizens, more especially in the area of local financial debt laws, which Day 49 aims at in part.

Just a few of his comments, and mine, as I read the essay (via The Internet Archive):
web_dubois_1918
“There can be but one answer : The best and most capable of their youth
must be schooled in the colleges and universities of the land. ”

No, this is not current popular grass-roots ideology, but is it true that anyone can do quantum physics? Every person capable of grasping higher concepts must be encouraged to do so, for the benefit of all human potential.

47.62% ” …it placed before the eyes of almost every Negro child an attainable ideal. ”

On the importance of teachers as role models…

59.52% ” Negro teachers have
been discouraged by starvation wages and the
idea that any training will do for a black
teacher.”

This includes the still low expectations for us by most white people.
Even to this day.

Pretty abrupt end to the essay, and it makes a devastating point.
Please read it.

Shira

Action Items:

1.) Share your thoughts, please.

2.) Write a story, post or comment that uses those thoughts.

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Click here to read, if you like:

B5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli AnnemLupin, or La Casa de Papel/Money Heist, and El Ministerio del Tiempo Reviews

Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBetter.  This review is my personal way (as opposed to founding the Project, overall) of contributing to building tools that can help increase empathy and compassion in our world.  Story, as part of how we see our world, helps us make sense of and define our actions in this world.  And remember how important story is also as part of this project. Let’s Do Better.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

ShiraDest

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

BookReview: Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation 1838-1839, by Fanny Kemble

    Important reading.

How on earth could the slave owners and overseers not realize that in listening to the complaints of the slaves, this woman was actually doing the owners themselves a favor -rather than increasing discontent, listening gave an outlet to those slaves who confided in her, thus actually decreasing their discontent by making them feel heard, and actually adding years to the lives of the masters and overseers. Had the slaves not felt listened to, they might have slit the throats of all the white men on the plantation, despite (or because of) the repressive conditions. How on earth could they not realize that their very deafness and blindness to their cruelty increased the risk of revolt? Discontent penned up boils over, as the Great Depression showed (which was why we got Social Security, Medica* and Welfare -that, and the fact that FDR did not want the Japanese using segregation and Bread Lines as bad P.R. against US…).

Courage, and hope against hope.

This is what #ProjectDoBetter hopes to help change.  (see link below for how you can help…)  DoBetterCover
In Service to Community,
original review Date: 27 August 12,014 H.E. (Holocene/Human Era)

Shira

Action Items:

1.) Share your thoughts, please.

2.) Create a story, post or comment that uses those thoughts.

*****************

Click here to read, if you like:

B5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli AnnemLupin, or La Casa de Papel/Money Heist, El Ministerio del Tiempo Reviews

Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBetter.  This book review is part of my personal way (as opposed to founding the Project, overall) of contributing to building tools that can help increase empathy and compassion in our world.  Story, as part of how we see our world, helps us make sense of and define our actions in this world.  And remember how important story is also as part of this project. Let’s Do Better.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

ShiraDest

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

French Fridays Review: The Corsican Brothers (Les Frères Corses), by Alexandre Dumas, Pere

    Wow, this is a book worth listening to and then reading, several times!  I love this comment from the summary on a site called Fabula, an org that appears to promote public domain books in French:
“Ce roman est destiné à deux catégories de lecteurs : les Corses, et les autres. / This novel is for two types of readers: Corsicans, and everyone else.”

    Still waiting on pins and needles, argh!

 as I schedule this post, for Lupin Part 3 Lupin10  to start up again, with Omar Sy (whose revenge takes a slightly more dapper and modern turn than that of the Spartan style brother from Napoleon’s home island…)!!! 

I listened to this one via litteratureaudio, a free Public Domain ebook service not unlike Librivox.org, but I still do not know why it is a dot com rather than a dot org.  It seems to have many more of Dumas’ books, and the readers seem to be far better, but it is more difficult to listen to the books, at least so far, even logged in as a Follower of several readers.  

(Just ask if I forget any translations from my reading updates…):
J’ai écoutée, gratuitement, bien sur, la version de littératureaudio lu par Juliette. C’est très intrigant ce livre, avec les jeaumeaux identiques, les visites des morts qui ne mens pas, et surtout la vendetta. Très intéressant comment histoire et aussi pour connaitre les habitudes des Corses. Et la dernierre ligne ! Incroyable !!

/
I listened to the litaudio version read by Juliette. It was a very intriguing book, with identical twins, visits from the dead who do not lie, and above all, The Vendetta. Very interesting as a story and also to see the customs of the Coriscans. And the last line of the story! Incredible!!

and La guerre entre deux familles durant 4 siecles !  /  and a 4 century long family feud!

End of chapter 12 -excellent suspense, as always, with Mr. Dumas, pere.

   Once again, Mr. Dumas does not disappoint.  Interesting how he manages to insert himself, the author, as a character in this frame story.
   dumas_by_nadar2c_1855
Many thanks to all of the volunteers who read these books in the public domain.
***

Shira

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Click here to read, if you like:

Shira

Creative Commons License
Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Review: Black Reconstruction in America 1860-1880, by W. E. B. Du Bois  

   I was a bit surprised to see the point of view taken by the author in analyzing the Reconstruction, but apart from a few areas in which I disagree with the framing, but not with his conclusions, I found this book spot on.  web_dubois_1918

     I had mixed feelings about the lens through which Du Bois writes this book, starting about halfway through. Every word he writes is correct, and his conclusions are all compelling, but to view the Reconstruction as he does, to me, gives more power than actually existed at the time, to both the freed slaves, and also even to the labor movement and the North. Nevertheless, to see all of the facts gathered at a time when history had just moved on enough to give a bit of perspective to the war, and also to see how little the actual situation had advanced, was almost shocking. That he had to defend an entire group of people from pseudo-scientific balderdash heaped upon us merely for not being white still angers me, and that we continue to need to defend ourselves is still worse.

     I agree with his assessment that the endgame was always economic, as he says on page 399/767:

“The free admission of such testimony in all cases would not have involved the surrender of power by the whites since they were to be the judges and jury. The occupational restrictions, instead of tending to restore order, created the impression that the dominant race desired to exclude the blacks from useful employment.”

and the saddest part is

“Democracy died save in the hearts of black folk. Indeed, the plight of the white working class throughout the world today is directly traceable to Negro slavery in America, on which modern commerce and industry was founded, and which persisted to threaten free labor until it was partially overthrown in 1863.”

     And of course, education remains the key lever for change. One note on literacy: if all work contracts had to be in writing, how could the newly freed slaves not have had free schooling immediately?

     So he recorded, at the same time, interestingly enough, that the PWA was creating the Slave Narratives, a crucial set of events that were being distorted as fast as possible by those who would keep everyone in the erroneous belief that race existed, and that this concept of race made those of us who fall on the wrong side of an arbitrary line to be inferior, by our very natures, to those defined as white. The charges of corruption and stupidity leveled only at Colored voters and legislators were often simple inventions and always distortions, with the effect of continuing a labor monopoly that harmed absolutely all workers and small business owners, merchants, etc. And Du Bois essentially points out that events at this time paved the way for the large industries, from the railroads to Standard Oil, to form monopolies that would eventually have to be broken up, but after making a few men very rich, and tilting the economic structure of this country almost irreversibly in favor of those very ultra wealth who fixed the system. He points out again and again how all workers, Black and White, in the South, and even the Planters, were denied education, or educated only in the superficial fineries of life, and never really looked much below the surface. The culture of living on the subservience of another creates classes of people who only appear to benefit from that service and degradation of the other. But it takes an outside observer to help those inside of a closed system, as the South tried to be, to see that, and to step into a new perspective just long enough to understand how to change, and why change would benefit everyone. Du Bois points out that very very few people of such clarity of vision even existed at that time, let alone had any effective voice. That is the great tragedy of all of this, the terrible waste of human potential that continues even to this day, due to those ingrained ideas that so many have trouble putting aside, even for the moment that it takes to imagine a different perspective.

Education, and the ballot.

Du Bois was right, then, and remains right, now.

Shelved
October 20, 2016 – Shelved
December 19, 2022 – Started Reading
       Just found a #PublicDomain copy (from The Internet Archive) on a backup hard drive, never copied to my new Reading folder after I downloaded it years ago! Glad I check my backup files before deleting them! Librivox does not have an audio of this one yet, I imagine because of the length of this book, but it starts off, in the “To The Reader” section with a heck of a blast, leveled directly at racists!
“…the reader … If he believes that the Negro … under given environment develops like other human beings, then he will read this story and judge it by the facts … If, however, he regards the Negro as a distinctly inferior creation …he will need something more than the sort of facts… I am assuming the truth of the first…”
As w/cities L’Orient, & Bath?
            “…land, added to cheap labor, and labor easily regulated and distributed, made profits so high that a whole system of culture arose in the South, with a new leisure… Black labor… foundation stone not only of the Southern social structure, but of Northern manufacture and commerce… English factory … European commerce… buying and selling…new cities were built on the results”
and
“…a special police force and such a force was made possible and unusually effective by the presence of the poor whites.  This explains the difference between the slave revolts in the West Indies, and the lack of effective revolt in the Southern United States.”
  “It was the Supreme Adventure, in the last Great Bate of the West, for that human freedom which would release the human spirit from lower lust for mere meat, and set it free to dream and sing. And then some unjust God leaned, laughing, over the ramparts of heaven and dropped a black man in the midst. It transformed the world. It turned democracy back to Roman Imperialism and Fascism; it restored caste and oligarchy…”

   “#teaching #racism:

“… schools and pedantic periodicals repeated these legends, until for the average planter born after 1840 it was impossible not to believe that all valid laws in psychology, economics and politics stopped with the Negro race.””

page 52 6.97%:

      #DivideAndRule works, sadly:

“…but it was not until war time that it became the fashion to pat the disfranchised poor white man on the back and tell him after all he was white and that he and the planters had a common object in keeping the white man superior. This virus increased bitterness and relentless hatred, and after the war it became a chief ingredient in the division of the working class”

Enslaved, free colored, and poor white workers had a common problem, but:

“… the whites, accustomed to having all their affairs managed by an aristocracy which was then ruined, seemed powerless.””

and even
“…Sumner sent in a second substitute declaring that the cause of human rights and of the Union needed the ballots as well as the muskets of colored men. He offered another amendment imposing equal suffrage as the fundamental condition for the admission of the seceded states.”
“Here comes the penalty which a land pays when it stifles free speech and free discussion and turns itself over entirely to propaganda. It does not make any difference if at the time the things advocated are absolutely right, the nation, nevertheless, becomes morally emasculated and mentally hogtied, and cannot evolve that healthy difference of opinion which leads to the discovery of truth under changing conditions.”
How did the North let states get away with this:
“Mississippi provided that “every freedman, free Negro … have a lawful home or employment, and shall have written evidence thereof . . . from the Mayor… or from a member of the board of police . . . which licenses may be revoked for cause at any time by the authority granting the same.””
Interesting: #solidarity might have made that happen:

“The workingmen of Europe felt sure that as the American War of Independence initiated a new era of ascendency for the Middle Class, so the American Anti-Slavery war will do for the working classes.””

And coming back to recent current events:

 “So, lies, land, and racism were used to keep Black and White poor divided against each other, while “A black skin… has never, therefore, created any civilization of any kind.”

     This is part of why the return of the Kingdom of Benin art work is so important.

“When Northern and Southern employers agreed that profit was most important and the method of getting it second, the path to understanding was clear. When white laborers were convinced that the degradation of Negro labor was more fundamental than the uplift of white labor, the end was in sight.”
Poor whites were
“… desperately afraid of something. Of what? Of many things, but usually of losing their jobs, being declassed, degraded, or actually disgraced; of losing their hopes, their savings, their plans for their children; of the actual pangs of hunger, of dirt, of crime. And of all this, most ubiquitous in modern industrial society is that fear of unemployment.””
#Racism was used effectively to divide, back then, but we can learn to Do Better, now.
“Yet we are blind and led by the blind.”

But it doesn’t have to continue this way.”

Thank you again, Internet Archive.

Let’s Do Better, please.

Shira

Action Items:

1.) Share your thoughts, please.

2.) Write a story, post or comment that uses those thoughts.

*****************

Click here to read, if you like:

B5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli AnnemLupin, or La Casa de Papel/Money Heist, and El Ministerio del Tiempo Reviews

Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBetter.  This review is my personal way (as opposed to founding the Project, overall) of contributing to building tools that can help increase empathy and compassion in our world.  Story, as part of how we see our world, helps us make sense of and define our actions in this world.  And remember how important story is also as part of this project. Let’s Do Better.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

ShiraDest

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Ministry Mondays Review: El Capitán Alatriste, by Pérez-Reverte

    This is the famous person for whom everyone keeps mistaking Alonso, in El Ministerio del Tiempo.

Alonso, por Omar R. La Rosa
Alonso, por Omar R. La Rosa

I read this book, and thought I had reviewed it, as I noted in 2018:   ”

Creî que habîa escrito una revista de este libro ya hace tiempo que tal vez se perdiô, pero bueno. Me encantô la trama y sobre todo la relacion entre Alatriste y Iñigo. / Thought I had reviewed this book some time ago, and maybe it got lost, but ok. I loved the drama and above all, the relationship between Alatriste and Inigo.”

citing especially the last line “que hubiera estado pensando/he could have been thinking” regarding the friend whose execution they watched, after feasting all night the evening before with the condemned man. So, to summarize, this book is about a 16th century Spanish soldier who forms part of the elite corps of loyal Spaniards fighting for the empire in many places, particularly Flanders. The hero, Capitan Alatriste, is a solid man, not a man of trifles, but a decent man, raising as his adopted son the friend of a fallen comrade. There are so many beautiful moments that I must go find this book again and read it, especially since it has been over a decade now since I read it, and my Spanish has also improved, so the reading experience will be far easier, and maybe I missed a few things.

Shira

Action Items:

1.) Dear Readers, share your thoughts on writing, please.

2.) Write a story, post or comment that uses those thoughts.

*****************

Click here to read, if you like:

B5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli AnnemLupin, or La Casa de Papel/Money Heist, El Ministerio del Tiempo Reviews

Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBetter.  This review is my personal way (as opposed to founding the Project, overall) of contributing to building tools that can help increase empathy and compassion in our world.  Story, as part of how we see our world, helps us make sense of and define our actions in this world.  And remember how important story is also as part of this project. Let’s Do Better.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

ShiraDest

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.