Reviews for Pride and Promise: The Harlem Renaissance

The average rating for Pride and Promise: The Harlem Renaissance based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-06-15 00:00:00 Aaron Howe Jay Parini's Promised Land: 13 Books That Changed America represents an anthology discussing 13 works that form a social narrative on United States History and serve to define the continuing evolution in the way in which the country sees itself. There are other books that seek to present the country in a social context rather than focusing merely on major political & other figures, key dates, important battles, etc. but Parini's book does this within a literary framework, something that I find quite compelling. One could argue with the books chosen, as a few at this site do rather intensely but the format is valid and I find the author's choice of books rather convincing. However, beyond the 13 Jay Parini has chosen to make his case, in an appendix he lists 100 further books that have changed America. I have long considered the U.S. an ongoing social experiment, largely involving the immigrant experience, with various attempts at integrating or merging disparate factions, races & ethnicities following the overthrow of an essentially British-based system in which most of the early non-Native American settlers were from England. The author asks the reader to examine each of the chosen 13 books as moments when the country was forced to reconsider itself because of the particular vantage point of an individual author, rather than because of an act of congress, a presidential mandate or the turmoil of the Civil War that violently separated the states & its citizens from each other. Rather than a history of the U.S. like that of Samuel Eliot Morrison or another historian, Promised Land takes 13 books that represent "a climate of opinion" and attempts to examine how each volume had an impact on the development of the United States. On Plymouth Plantation by John Bradford looks at how the Puritan "Separatists" squared off vs. "Capitalists", with religious partisans battling for control against those eager to turn the land to their economic advantage, also including coverage of the terms of the Mayflower Compact in 1621. Next, there is a brief exposition of the Federalist Papers, a series of essays commenting on & promoting the American Constitution from varying angles, written by Alexander Hamilton (52 essays), James Madison (28) & John Jay (5), with the last author listed as "Publius". The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin is viewed as displaying "self-confidence bordering on arrogance, a quality that would become part of the American character." Franklin's list of virtues reminds one of those espoused by Gatsby, including common sense & good cheer with Jesus & Plato as models. The Journals of Westward Expansion by Lewis & Clark is seen as an American journey west & not just one made by the intrepid explorers at Jefferson's behest, telling of "a way into the wilderness & the way home as well." With Thoreau's Walden, we learn of a man "who found in nature what others found in religion", the story of a man who is said to have influenced the likes of Gandhi, Martin Luther King & even Tolstoy, among countless others. Uncle Tom's Cabin "opened a vein of discourse that has never been exhausted, recalling the bleak history of race relations in the U.S." Abraham Lincoln was extremely moved & influenced by the book by Harriet Beecher Stowe. In Parini's view Huckleberry Finn is a covert autobiography that celebrates American independence & Twain's as well, with the author choosing to affirm his freedom even while chancing damnation. It is remembered that Hemingway saw all American literature as beginning with Twain's book, which evidences social commentary in the form of a cherished novel! The Souls of Black Folks by W.E.B. DuBois, written by the 1st African-American to earn a PhD from Harvard University serves as a bridge between the Emancipation Proclamation and the speech by Martin Luther King in 1963, a book that serves to help today's reader comprehend our continuing racial division. Promised Land by Mary Antin is a tableau of the immigrant experience, a memoir personified by Antin's words: "Mine is the whole majestic past & mine is the shining future." Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends & Influence People is an "early prototype & an iconic model of the self-help genre." While some of the suggested behavior may seem trivial & overtly insincere, the book apparently helped Jay Parini make it through a period as a very shy boy. Dale Carnegie's book has never been out of print & continues to benefit others. Benjamin Spock's Common Sense of Baby & Child Care has sold more than 50 million copies & 40+ languages, a common sense approach to dealing with the nature vs. nurture debate, also accentuating the role of the father in a child's life. Lastly, there is what I consider the most curious choice of the 13, Jack Kerouac's On the Road, though this book uses the term "Promised Land" frequently & seems inspired by Walt Whitman, seeking a "Paradise Within Thee", a Beat-Era novel edited by Malcolm Cowley, who worked with Hemingway & Fitzgerald but who apparently "sanitized" the scroll version of Kerouac's memoir/novel, a statement that continues as both an influence for some & a book eagerly banned by others. I've read & enjoyed several other books by Jay Parini, a gifted writer & professor at Middlebury College, including biographies of Robert Frost & John Steinbeck. Promised Land: 13 Books That Changed America does include some repetitious phrasings + a fairly distinct point of view but the intent of the book is still pleasantly challenging, forming a pathway 0f the American Imagination over 3+ centuries and then coming to grips with each book, titles that while not perhaps always the most-sold or best-liked, were forces for change within an ever-evolving American landscape. *Among Jay Parini's many books, The Last Station, dealing with Leo Tolstoy's final year of life & told from multiple viewpoints, was turned into an Academy Award nominated film.

Review # 2 was written on 2009-12-06 00:00:00 Jason Tardo I originally picked this book up to hear what Mr. Parini had to say about Ben Franklin's autobiography. I teach it in my high school AP classes, so I wanted to see if I could get fresh insight on the book. Of course, I am writing this review because I found much more than an insightful discussion of Franklin's autobiography. Like all great books, this one builds on itself chapter by chapter, drawing lines of force between all of the books, painting American Literature as a centuries-long conversation. By the time Parini writes about Kerouac's On the Road, he is drawing parallels between most of the books that he has discussed before, including Walden, The Promised Land, and Huck Finn, and he is doing so in a strong, formal prose that also invites the casual reader. Parini is, after all, a poet. Some may quibble with the 13 books he chooses, but these particular books, put in chronological order, allow Parini (to paraphrase a line from Parini himself in the book) to do more than tell a picaresque story; it allows him to deliver a narrative, a plot, with one book necessarily issuing as a new voice in a long conversation. I have read most of the 13 books included here, and what makes this book so powerful is Parini's ability to capture the tone and the impact of the books he discusses, even the ones that aren't "classics" in a literary sense. In fact, he does not simply choose books he likes; he displays condescension for "How to Win Friends and Influence People," while noting its powerful impact on him as a young man. I originally planned on having my students read the Franklin chapter, but I'm pretty sure now they'll be reading the whole thing. "The Promised Land" is intelligent, insightful, powerful, and, above all, engaging.