#7: Ronald Takaki, A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America

[gwyneira.livejournal.com]

Takaki brings together a multitude of voices to tell the rich, complex story of the non-Anglo peoples of the United States: African Americans, Asian Americans, Indians, Jews, Latinos, and more. He begins with the colonization of North America by the Europeans and "the racialization of savagery", whereby the Europeans came to believe that the Indians were different from and inferior to them, and that this difference was based on race and skin color. Then he goes on to examine the experiences of other peoples, taking a roughly chronological approach and devoting each chapter to a specific group and their experiences in a particular period. Takaki lets his subjects speak for themselves constantly; the text is full of quotations from songs, poems, prose, and interviews. Like Lies My Teacher Told Me, this is one of those books which opens your eyes to the history you're not necessarily taught in schools and to many overlooked aspects of the rich cultural and ethnic heritage of the United States.

I think I'd also like to read Takaki's Strangers from a Different Shore, which is a history of Asian Americans. Can anyone recommend other books on American history written by PoC? I'm especially interested in the 18th and 19th centuries.