Americas
![Ibram X. Kendi - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B00IMUM1R0.jpg)
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America (National Book Award Winner)
The National Book Award winning history of how racist ideas were created, spread, and deeply rooted in American society.
Some Americans insist that we're living in a post-racial society. But racist thought is not just alive and well in America--it is more sophisticated and more insidious than ever. And as award-winning historian Ibram X. Kendi argues, racist ideas have a long and lingering history, one in which nearly every great American thinker is complicit.
In this deeply researched and fast-moving narrative, Kendi chronicles the entire story of anti-black racist ideas and their staggering power over the course of American history. He uses the life stories of five major American intellectuals to drive this history: Puritan minister Cotton Mather, Thomas Jefferson, abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, W.E.B. Du Bois, and legendary activist Angela Davis.
As Kendi shows, racist ideas did not arise from ignorance or hatred. They were created to justify and rationalize deeply entrenched discriminatory policies and the nation's racial inequities.
In shedding light on this history, Stamped from the Beginning offers us the tools we need to expose racist thinking. In the process, he gives us reason to hope.
Praise for Stamped from the Beginning:
"We often describe a wonderful book as 'mind-blowing' or 'life-changing' but I've found this rarely to actually be the case. I found both descriptions accurate for Ibram X. Kendi's Stamped from the Beginning... I will never look at racial discrimination again after reading this marvellous, ambitious, and clear-sighted book." - George Saunders, Financial Times, Best Books of 2017
"Ambitious, well-researched and worth the time of anyone who wants to understand racism." - Seattle Times
"A deep (and often disturbing) chronicling of how anti-black thinking has entrenched itself in the fabric of American society." - The Atlantic
- Winner of the 2016 National Book Award for Nonfiction
- A New York Times Bestseller
- A Washington Post Bestseller
- Finalist for the 2016 National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction
- Named one of the Best Books of the Year by the Boston Globe, - Washington Post, Chicago Review of Books, The Root, Buzzfeed, Bustle, and Entropy
Some Americans insist that we're living in a post-racial society. But racist thought is not just alive and well in America--it is more sophisticated and more insidious than ever. And as award-winning historian Ibram X. Kendi argues, racist ideas have a long and lingering history, one in which nearly every great American thinker is complicit.
In this deeply researched and fast-moving narrative, Kendi chronicles the entire story of anti-black racist ideas and their staggering power over the course of American history. He uses the life stories of five major American intellectuals to drive this history: Puritan minister Cotton Mather, Thomas Jefferson, abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, W.E.B. Du Bois, and legendary activist Angela Davis.
As Kendi shows, racist ideas did not arise from ignorance or hatred. They were created to justify and rationalize deeply entrenched discriminatory policies and the nation's racial inequities.
In shedding light on this history, Stamped from the Beginning offers us the tools we need to expose racist thinking. In the process, he gives us reason to hope.
Praise for Stamped from the Beginning:
"We often describe a wonderful book as 'mind-blowing' or 'life-changing' but I've found this rarely to actually be the case. I found both descriptions accurate for Ibram X. Kendi's Stamped from the Beginning... I will never look at racial discrimination again after reading this marvellous, ambitious, and clear-sighted book." - George Saunders, Financial Times, Best Books of 2017
"Ambitious, well-researched and worth the time of anyone who wants to understand racism." - Seattle Times
"A deep (and often disturbing) chronicling of how anti-black thinking has entrenched itself in the fabric of American society." - The Atlantic
- Winner of the 2016 National Book Award for Nonfiction
- A New York Times Bestseller
- A Washington Post Bestseller
- Finalist for the 2016 National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction
- Named one of the Best Books of the Year by the Boston Globe, - Washington Post, Chicago Review of Books, The Root, Buzzfeed, Bustle, and Entropy
Editorial Reviews
"We often describe a wonderful book as 'mind-blowing' or 'life-changing' but I've found this rarely to actually be the case. I found both descriptions accurate for Ibram X. Kendi's Stamped from the Beginning... I will never look at racial discrimination again after reading this marvellous, ambitious, and clear-sighted book."
―George Saunders, Financial Times, Best Books of 2017
"An engrossing and relentless intellectual history of prejudice in America.... The greatest service Kendi [provides] is the ruthless prosecution of American ideas about race for their tensions, contradiction and unintended consequences."―Washington Post
"A deep (and often disturbing) chronicling of how anti-black thinking has entrenched itself in the fabric of American society."―The Atlantic
"A staggering intellectual history of racism in America that is both rigorous and ...readable."―New Republic
"An intricate look at the history of race in the U.S., arguing that many well-meaning American progressives inadvertently operate on belief systems tinged with a racist heritage."―TIME
"Ambitious, well-researched and worth the time of anyone who wants to understand racism."
―Seattle Times
"Kendi upends many commonly held beliefs about how racism works, exploring the ideas and thinkers behind our most intractable social and cultural problem."―Boston Globe
"An altogether remarkable thesis on history, but, in ways that are both moving and immediately painful, it also reverberates with the post-election autopsy we're all conducting right now... Stamped from the Beginning is a riveting (and often rivetingly written) work, well deserving of the National Book Award."―The Stranger
"The National Book Awards show the way toward the America we want, not the one we're getting."―New York Magazine
"Kendi has done something that's damn near impossible: write a book about racism that breaks new ground, while being written in a way that's accessible to the nonacademic. If you've ever been interested in how racist ideas spread throughout the United States, this is the book to read."―The Root
"Kendi is able to decisively quell the arguments that racism is a bygone byproduct of ignorance...Kendi's writing style is plainspoken, detail-oriented, and straightforward...In the midst of leaving Jefferson and his fellows open to judgment, Kendi leaves plenty of room for self-questioning, and for drawing connections between the racist apologetics of the past and those of the present. The process makes for a compelling, thoroughly enlightening, unsettling, and necessary read."―Vox
"Ambitious...Kendi ba...
―George Saunders, Financial Times, Best Books of 2017
"An engrossing and relentless intellectual history of prejudice in America.... The greatest service Kendi [provides] is the ruthless prosecution of American ideas about race for their tensions, contradiction and unintended consequences."―Washington Post
"A deep (and often disturbing) chronicling of how anti-black thinking has entrenched itself in the fabric of American society."―The Atlantic
"A staggering intellectual history of racism in America that is both rigorous and ...readable."―New Republic
"An intricate look at the history of race in the U.S., arguing that many well-meaning American progressives inadvertently operate on belief systems tinged with a racist heritage."―TIME
"Ambitious, well-researched and worth the time of anyone who wants to understand racism."
―Seattle Times
"Kendi upends many commonly held beliefs about how racism works, exploring the ideas and thinkers behind our most intractable social and cultural problem."―Boston Globe
"An altogether remarkable thesis on history, but, in ways that are both moving and immediately painful, it also reverberates with the post-election autopsy we're all conducting right now... Stamped from the Beginning is a riveting (and often rivetingly written) work, well deserving of the National Book Award."―The Stranger
"The National Book Awards show the way toward the America we want, not the one we're getting."―New York Magazine
"Kendi has done something that's damn near impossible: write a book about racism that breaks new ground, while being written in a way that's accessible to the nonacademic. If you've ever been interested in how racist ideas spread throughout the United States, this is the book to read."―The Root
"Kendi is able to decisively quell the arguments that racism is a bygone byproduct of ignorance...Kendi's writing style is plainspoken, detail-oriented, and straightforward...In the midst of leaving Jefferson and his fellows open to judgment, Kendi leaves plenty of room for self-questioning, and for drawing connections between the racist apologetics of the past and those of the present. The process makes for a compelling, thoroughly enlightening, unsettling, and necessary read."―Vox
"Ambitious...Kendi ba...
Readers Top Reviews
Serenus Zeitblom
Viele Rezensionen hat Ibram X Kendi mit "Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America" in den Medien erhalten, 2016 auch den Sachbuchpreis des National Book Award, Der selbst afroamerikanische Hochschullehrer sieht die US-Geschichte einmal konsequent aus der Perspektive des Rassismus. Das ist nicht die gewohnte Betrachtungsweise - Schwarze, ihre Versklavung bzw. Diskrimierung werden meist sonst nur kurz angetippt - und dadurch aufschlussreich. Mit dem Finger auf "die da" in den USA zu weisen, wäre aber falsch - "Stamped from the beginning" sensibilisiert eher für den täglichen abstempelnden Rassismus hier wie dort. Und gegen andere Diskriminierungen aufgrund von Geschlecht, Orientierung, Geld, Herkunft, ... Kendis aufmerksame Hinweise auf Rassismus damals wie heute lassen sich nämlich so übertragen. Kendi verwehrt sich dabei gegen "Segregationismus" (getrennte Entwicklung), aber auch gegen einen Assimilations-Rassismus, dass Schwarze sich einfach nur angleichen müssten/sollten. Seine "antirassistischen" Vorbilder sind die aufbegehrenden Angela Davis und De Bois, und auch deren Irrwege stellt Kendi mit dar. Gute viereinhalb Sterne.
The Spyglass
I bought this book for my father, as a Father’s Day gift. Although we are Canadian, my Dad is very interested in understanding the legacy of slavery in America and the indelible mark it has left. The book was highly praised and recommended by people I trust. It did not disappoint. The book does a wonderful job of laying out the cyclical nature of civil rights progress and backlash. In many ways, what we are experiencing now, after 8 years of a black man in The White House, was inevitable. This author lays out the pattern that seems to be inescapable. If you are interested in understanding more about why the pendulum seems to have swung so far the other way, I recommend this book.
Charlotte Elizabeth
I really recommend that everyone reads this book.
Sean VermillionThe
I saw Kendi speak about his new book. He appeared to be scholarly when it comes to making his arguments. However, I was shocked and disappointed to find in his book accusations that the 1968 film, Planet of the Apes, and the 1976 film, Rocky, are a racist reflection of white America. He argues that 1968, the year Planet came out, Lyndon Johnson's State of the Union address called for law and order against the riots and protests, there were fears that a "violent black revolution could be on the horizon (p. 400). That may have been well and true. However, on the following page (p. 401), Kendi projects his own biased assumptions about the film by arguing that it was somehow a reflection of the white collective subconsciousness's view of black people as apes. However, it doesn't appear that he's ever seen the film or took the time to learn the film's message. He wrote, "When White astronauts land on a planet after a 2,000 year journey, apes enslave them" (Kendi, 2016, p. 401). Well, for starters the astronauts weren't all white. One was black! When actor Charlton Heston realizes he is on Earth upon discovering the Statue of Liberty partly buried on a sandy beach, he says the now famous line, "You blew it up, you basterds!" He says this because HUMAN civilization ended after a nuclear war, which was also a fear at that time. Kendi also made no reference to his interpretation of the film. He only commented, "Planet if the Apes took the place of Tarzan in racist popular culture." On page 422, Kendi wrote about Rocky, "Rocky's opponent, Apollo Creed, with his amazing avalanche of punches, symbolized the rising black middle class, and the real life heavyweight champion of the world in 1976, the pride of Black Power masculinity, Muhammad Ali. Rocky Balboa-as played by Sylvester Stallone-came to symbolize the pride of White supremacy's refusal to be knocked out of the avalanche of civil rights and Black Power protests and policies." Rocky is merely an American underdog story that Stallone wrote, based off of the 1975 heavyweight boxing match between Muhammad Ali and Chuck Wepner. A match that the white boxer nearly beat the World Champion. Like Planet of the Apes, the film was used by Kendi as well as his reference as a sort of rorschach test to project their own biases about the films being racist. If Kendi chooses to interpret both films in his spare time as reflections of collective white unconscious racism, that's fine and dandy. However, when I find these speculations in a book being touted as an achievement of black scholarship, I have to question what other liberties Kendi took with the truth in his book.
