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Title: Roots: The Saga of an American Family
ISBN: B000WHAZLA
Author:
Alex Haley
Publicate Date: 2007-05-22
Publish: 2007-05-22
List Price: $15.95
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $4.49
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $2.89
Amazon Merchant Price: $4.99
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Errors, Errors, Everywhere
It was a well written story. Unfortunately, there were a ridiculous number of grammar and spelling errors as well as a couple incorrect facts that really devalued the book for me. I couldn't read 10 pages without seeing a mistake like "the the". I was especially disappointed by these errors since it was the special 30th Anniversary reprint of the book. I would have thought they would fix most of these mistakes. As a history teacher, the factual errors were even worse for me. He wrote that the American Revolution was also known as the Seven Years' War. That is incorrect. The Seven Years' War is another name for the French and Indian War which preceded the Amer. Rev. After reading the first 500 pages and getting so annoyed I finally bought it on tape and listened to the rest.
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2: Great Book and One Worth Remembering!
I loved this book when it first came out and am now watching the miniseries all over again. It is wonderful to read and behold. Many of the family's lore has been proven to be fiction but does it matter? It is a great book and wonderful idea for a story. It brought back the idea of tracing people's roots that is still with us today. A wonderful read.
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3: A must read
anybody interested in American history or family this is the book to read. Hailey is a must read for eveybody.
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4: Reviw for the Kindle editon
I read this book on Kindle a couple of months ago. I remember watching the mini series as a kid but had never read the book. I'm not going to go into the literary aspects because that has been covered, in it's good and bad points already. I will say I'm glad I've read it. I won't consider it a completely accurate history lesson, but it does make a person think past normal boundaries. This book is formatted well for Kindle, it had no formatting issues. The fact I read it on Kindle was "handy" because I could look up tribal phrases in the dictionary, or wiki with little effort and go straight back to reading.
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5: A beloved book marred by flaws
I love Roots and think the whole world should read it. It's an important and vital book about American history, family history, and triumph over hardship. I loved Roots the first time I read it twenty years ago, and I love it still, having just finished it yesterday, BUT...
1) If only Alex Haley hadn't plagiarized whole sections of the book (see Wikipedia's article on the author Harold Courlander)
2) If only Haley really HAD been related to Kunta Kinte (genealogists state he consciously perpetrated a hoax)
3) If only Juffure really WAS Haley's ancestral village (evidence suggests that the griot from modern Juffure with "memories" of Kunta Kinte's disappearance in 1767 was coached about what to "remember")
I found these fabrications depressing. And what's so sad is that I believe Haley had no need to lie and cheat, because he's really a top-notch storyteller.
This aside, though, I have a few other critical comments.
1) The book begins a slow descent into petering out after Kunta Kinte exits. The characters become increasingly wooden and one-dimensional. Kunta is great, Kizzy is good, Chicken George is fair, and everyone and almost everything after that is forgettable.
2) The book lauds having tons of children, mindlessly, and fails to criticize parents who have children and cannot provide for them. Haley makes it seem that having children and passing on the family name, no matter what horror the child risks getting subjected to, is the noblest of goals. I disagree! It sounds crass to say that slaves shouldn't have had children, but I hold all parents, slaves or not (rape victims being an exception), responsible when they knowingly bring children into a world of hell. (And Chicken George - a neglectful parent, to say the least - bringing 8 children into slavery? Nothing admirable there!)
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