Essays on Ayn Rand's Anthem Book

My Concord, MA book club chose this, and initially, it's interesting. Most of us never considered that slavery existed in the North, even in the Cradle of Liberty. Yet wealthy individuals DID own slaves. It was those slaves that allowed Concord's early leaders to become ministers, lawyers, writers, politicians--instead of working with the mule on the Back 40 to put food on the family table. The book traces the story of what happened to the Concord slaves, some of whom were born in Africa and remembered it well, once they were released from servitude. It ain't a pretty picture.

BUT--maybe I'm ADD, but the book was too long, too detailed, and had WAY to many leaps of logic in it when it comes to identifying particular ex-slaves or their relationships with each other. The author uses "presumably" way too often. The whole thing read like a doctoral thesis and would have been a lot more powerful with a better writer at the helm. It could also have profited from a few more maps, drawings, and photos. (People unfamiliar with Concord, especially early 19th century Concord, would find it hard to visualize just where all thee folks lived.