The Great Contradiction: The Tragic Side of the American Founding - REVIEW

by Joseph J. Ellis

An astounding look at how America’s founders—Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, Adams—regarded the issue of slavery as they drafted the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. A daring and important work that ultimately reckons with the two great failures of America’s founding: the failure to end slavery and the failure to avoid Indian removal.

On the eve of the American Revolution, half a million enslaved African Americans were embedded in the North American population. The slave trade was flourishing, even as the thirteen colonies armed themselves to defend against the idea of being governed without consent. This paradox gave birth to what one of our most admired historians, Joseph J. Ellis, calls the “great contradiction”: How could a government that had been justified and founded on the principles articulated in the Declaration of Independence institutionalize slavery? How could it permit a tidal wave of western migration by settlers who understood the phrase “pursuit of happiness” to mean the pursuit of Indian lands?

With narrative grace and a flair for irony and paradox, Ellis addresses the questions that lie at America’s twisted roots—questions that turned even the sharpest minds of the Revolutionary generation into mental contortionists. He discusses the first debates around slavery and the treatment of Native Americans, from the Constitutional Convention to the Treaty of New York, revealing the thinking and rationalizations behind Jay, Hamilton, and Madison’s revisions of the Articles of Confederation, and highlights the key role of figures like Quaker abolitionist Anthony Benezet and Creek chief Alexander McGillivray.

Ellis writes with candor and deftness, his clarion voice rising above presentist historians and partisans who are eager to make the founders into trophies in the ongoing culture wars. Instead, Ellis tells a story that is rooted in the coexistence of grandeur and failure, brilliance and blindness, grace and sin.

Joseph J. Ellis is the author of many works of American history, including Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, and American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson, which won the National Book Award. He lives on Hawk Mountain, in Plymouth County, with his wife and two labradoodles.

Knopf
ISBN-13: 978-0593801413

"Lift Every Voice and Sing"

by James Weldon Johnson

(verse 1)

Lift ev'ry voice and sing till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of liberty.
Let our rejoicing rise high as the list'ning skies;
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.

Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us;
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on till victory is won.

(verse 2)

Stony the road we trod, bitter the chast'ning rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died.
Yet with a steady beat, have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?

We have come over a way that with tears has been watered.
We have come, treading our path thru' the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past, till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

(verse 3)

God of our weary years, God of our silent tears,
Thou who hast brought us thus far on the way,
Thou who hast by thy might led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.

Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met thee,
Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee.
Shadowed beneath thy hand, may we forever stand,
True to our God, true to our native land.

Why We Click: The Emerging Science of Interpersonal Synchrony - REVIEW

by Kate Murphy

Why do you immediately click with some people while others just as inexplicably turn you off? Do people emit vibes? Is it possible to read a room? Are bad habits contagious?

Kate Murphy, author of the international bestseller You’re Not Listening, answers these and other fascinating questions in Why We Click, the first book that explores the emerging science and outsize impact of interpersonal synchrony, the most consequential social dynamic most people have never heard of. Interpersonal synchrony is the seemingly magical, yet now scientifically documented, tendency of human beings to fall into rhythm and find resonance with one another.

Not only do we subconsciously match one another’s movements, postures, facial expressions, and gestures; recent breakthroughs in technology have revealed we also sync up our heart rates, blood pressure, brainwaves, pupil dilation, and hormonal activity. The result is that emotions, moods, attitudes, and subsequent behaviors can be as infectious as any disease, and can have just as profound an impact on our health and well-being.

Interweaving science, philosophy, literature, history, business management theory, pop-culture, and plenty of relatable, real world examples, Why We Click explains why being “in sync,” “in tune,” “in step,” and “on the same wavelength” are more than just turns of phrase. From the bedroom to the boardroom and beyond, Murphy reveals with characteristic curiosity, concision, and wit how our instinct to sync with others drives much of our behavior and how our deepest desires―to be known, admired, loved, and connected―are so often thwarted in modern life.

Discussion Questions

1. Can you think of instances when you immediately clicked with someone or were perhaps turned off or got a bad vibe? How did reading about interpersonal synchrony change the way you think about how we form these kinds of instantaneous feelings and impressions?

2. Are there people in your life who are "hard to be around versus "easy to be around"? Did the book make you more aware of how people affect you not only emotionally but also physiologically?

3. Do you feel things or do things around certain people that you don't do ordinarily? How might interpersonal synchrony explain that?

4. What joint activities or shared experiences make you feel "at one" with those around you? Singing at church? Walking or running with others? Dancing? Attending political rallies, performances, or lectures? Watch an eclipse?

5. Have you ever been swept up in the emotions of other people, on- or offline?

6. Have you ever fallen out of sync with someone? Did the book give you a deeper understanding of why that might have happened and why it isn't necessarily a bad thing?

7. Can people "fake" being in sync, or is true connection always authentic and involuntary?

8. Have you ever walked into a room and felt a weird vibe? Did you later find out why things seemed "off"?

9. Chapter 3 focuses on the bad apple effect. Have you experienced a "bad apple" or felt someone's negative energy in a workplace or social setting? What was that person's impact on the collective mood and functioning of the group?

10. Can you think of people who are "good apples" who tend to leave you feeling energized and upbeat or perhaps make you feel more relaxed or calm?

11. If moods and attitudes are contagious, what responsibility do we have to manage our own energy whether at work, out with friends, or at home with our families?

12. What structural changes or leadership strategies beyond simply avoiding or removing bad apples might mitigate the spread of "toxic vibes" in a group?

13. Chapter 7, "Don't Over-Sync It," addresses our tendency to mirror others' emotions to you experienced this "over-syncing" phenomenon? What specific strategies did you learn in the book that might help you avoid getting sucked into someone else's emotional vortex?

14. Do you think our desire to connect is thwarted by modern life? How does technology - texting, video calls, social media - affect our ability to synchronize with others?

15. The book explores how synchronization can give the illusion of telepathy or mind reading ("I wd just thinking about you"). Have you ever experienced an uncanny coincidence or developed what turned out to be an eerily accurate hunch about someone?

16. How might you apply what you learned in the book to build stronger or more meaningful connections in your professional and/or personal life?

17. Have you ever had a parasocial relationship with a fictional, famous, or historical figure? How book changed the way you think about such imaginary attachments?

18. Are you in sync with your pet? What emotional and physiological effect do you have on your pet and vice versa?

19. How do you feel when you are in nature? How might the human instinct to sync explain your feelings?

20. Have you or anyone you've known ever felt an almost humanlike affection for (or even named) a car or boat? Did the book give you insight into such anthropomorphism?

Journalist Kate Murphy's eclectic essays and articles for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Agence France-Presse, and Texas Monthly have been shared and commented on by millions. She is known for her fresh and accessible style and ability to distill complex subjects, particularly the science behind human interactions. Her first book, You’re Not Listening: What You’re Missing and Why It Matters, was published in thirty-two languages and has become required reading in interpersonal communication courses at high schools, colleges, and universities worldwide. Kate lives in Houston, Texas, and holds a commercial pilot’s license.

Celadon Books
ISBN-13: 978-1250352453
#CeladonBookClub
#WhyWeClickBook

Classic Literature by Black Authors (part 2)

"Quicksand" by Nella Larsen

"The Wedding" by Dorothy West

"Black No More" by George Schuyler

"Not Without Laughter" by Langston Hughes

"Sula" by Toni Morrison

"Romance in Marseille" by Claude McKay

"The Blacker the Berry" by Wallace Thurman

America, América: A New History of the New World - REVIEW

by Greg Grandin

From the Pulitzer Prize–winning historian, Greg Grandin, the first comprehensive history of the Western Hemisphere, a sweeping five-century narrative of North and South America that redefines our understanding of both.

The story of how the United States’ identity was formed is almost invariably told by looking east to Europe. But as Greg Grandin vividly demonstrates, the nation’s unique sense of itself was in fact forged facing south toward Latin America. In turn, Latin America developed its own identity in struggle with the looming colossus to the north. In this stunningly original reinterpretation of the New World, Grandin reveals how North and South emerged from a constant, turbulent engagement with each other.

America, América traverses half a millennium, from the Spanish Conquest—the greatest mortality event in human history—through the eighteenth-century wars for independence, the Monroe Doctrine, the coups and revolutions of the twentieth century, and beyond. Grandin shows, among other things, how in response to U.S. interventions, Latin Americans remade the rules, leading directly to the founding of the United Nations; and how the Good Neighbor Policy allowed FDR to assume the moral authority to lead the fight against world fascism.

Grandin’s book sheds new light on well-known historical figures like Bartolomé de las Casas, Simón Bolívar, and Woodrow Wilson, as well as lesser-known actors such as the Venezuelan Francisco de Miranda, who almost lost his head in the French Revolution and conspired with Alexander Hamilton to free America from Spain; the Colombian Jorge Gaitán, whose unsolved murder inaugurated the rise of Cold War political terror, death squads, and disappearances; and the radical journalist Ernest Gruening, who, in championing non-interventionism in Latin America, helped broker the most spectacularly successful policy reversal in United States history. This is a monumental work of scholarship that will fundamentally change the way we think of Spanish and English colonialism, slavery and racism, and the rise of universal humanism. At once comprehensive and accessible, America, América shows that centuries of bloodshed and diplomacy not only helped shape the political identities of the United States and Latin America but also the laws, institutions, and ideals that govern the modern world. In so doing, Grandin argues that Latin America’s deeply held culture of social democracy can be an effective counterweight to today’s spreading rightwing authoritarianism.

A culmination of a decades-long engagement with hemispheric history, drawing on a vast array of sources, and told with authority and flair, this is a genuinely new history of the New World.

Greg Grandin is the author of The End of the Myth, which won the Pulitzer Prize; The Empire of Necessity, which won both the Bancroft and Beveridge prizes in American history; Fordlandia, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award; and a number of other widely acclaimed books. He is the Peter V. and C. Vann Woodward Professor of History at Yale University.

Penguin Press
ISBN-13: 978-0593831250

Madame Queen: The Life and Crimes of Harlem’s Underground Racketeer, Stephanie St. Clair, A Trailblazing Biography of a Black Female Gangster and Activist in 1920s - REVIEW

by Mary Kay McBrayer

The astonishing little-known history of Harlem racketeer Madame Stephanie St. Clair, one of the only female crime bosses and a Black, self-made businesswoman in early twentieth-century New York.

In her heyday, Stephanie St. Clair went by many names, but one was best known by all: Madame Queen. The undeniable queen of the Harlem numbers game, St. Clair redefined what it meant to be a woman of means. After immigrating to America from the West Indies, St. Clair would go on to manage one of the largest policy banks in all of Harlem by 1923. She knew the power of reputation, and even though her business was illegal gambling, she ran it like any other respectable entrepreneur. Because first and foremost, Madame Queen was a lady.

But that didn’t stop her from doing what needed to be done to survive. St. Clair learned how to navigate the complex male-dominated world of crime syndicates, all at a time when Tammany Hall and mafia groups like the Combination were trying to rule New York. With her tenacity and intellectual prowess, she never backed down. Madame Queen was a complicated figure, but she prioritized the people of Harlem above all else, investing her wealth back into the neighborhood and speaking out against police corruption and racial discrimination.

St. Clair was a trailblazer, unafraid to challenge societal norms. But for far too long she’s been a footnote in more infamous characters’ stories, like Bumpy Johnson, Dutch Schultz and Lucky Luciano. Now, in this masterful portrayal of a woman who defied the odds at all costs, she finally gets her due.

Mary Kay McBrayer is the author of America’s First Female Serial Killer: Jane Toppan and the Making of a Monster. You can find her short works at Oxford American, Narratively, Mental Floss, and FANGORIA, among other publications. She hosts the podcast about women in true crime, The Greatest True Crime Stories Ever Told.

Park Row
ISBN-13: 978-0778310655

Charles Sumner: Conscience of a Nation - REVIEW

by Zaakir Tameez

A landmark biography of Charles Sumner, the unsung hero of the American Civil War and Reconstruction.

Charles Sumner is mainly known as the abolitionist statesman who suffered a brutal caning on the Senate floor by the proslavery congressman Preston Brooks in 1856. This violent episode has obscured Sumner’s status as the most passionate champion of equal rights and multiracial democracy of his time. A friend of Alexis de Tocqueville, an ally of Frederick Douglass, and an adviser to Abraham Lincoln, Sumner helped the Union win the Civil War and ordain the Emancipation Proclamation, the Thirteenth Amendment, the Freedmen’s Bureau, and the Civil Rights Act of 1875.

In a comprehensive but fast-paced narrative, Zaakir Tameez presents Sumner as one of America’s forgotten founding fathers, a constitutional visionary who helped to rewrite the post–Civil War Constitution and give birth to modern civil rights law. He argues that Sumner was a gay man who battled with love and heartbreak at a time when homosexuality wasn’t well understood or accepted. And he explores Sumner’s critical partnerships with the nation’s first generation of Black lawyers and civil rights leaders, whose legal contributions to Reconstruction have been overlooked for far too long.

An extraordinary achievement of historical and constitutional scholarship, Charles Sumner brings back to life one of America’s most inspiring statesmen, whose formidable ideas remain relevant to a nation still divided over questions of race, democracy, and constitutional law.

Zaakir Tameez is an emerging scholar of antitrust and constitutional law. A graduate of Yale Law School and the University of Virginia, he is a Fulbright Scholar and Humanity in Action Senior Fellow from Houston, Texas.

Henry Holt and Co.
ISBN-13: 978-1250362551