Reviews for American Protest Literature

The average rating for American Protest Literature based on 3 reviews is 3.3333333333333 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2008-03-17 00:00:00 John Join Why is all the protest so mainstream? Where are all the really exciting manifestos? The gay liberation section is pretty good, but the rest is so depressing.

Review # 2 was written on 2009-05-04 00:00:00 Keo Obregon I have decidedly mixed views about this book. It is the only reliably available in-print anthology of US protest literature around, so it's the only game in town. Trodd deserves props for that. And the selections she has chosen are good; she uses the "reliables" but includes some less well known choices that are surprisingly apt. That being said, some of the choices are odd. She'll use a less well known work of a well known author (such as "The Ballot or the Bullet" by Malcolm X rather than a selection from the Autobiography), which might make the reader think that she's favoring shorter, complete texts rather than longer ones. But then she'll use some strange excerpt from a well-known text that will leave the reader scratching her head (like the bizarre choice from Crevecouer which doesn't fit thematically with the other selections in that unit of the book, even though there are others in 'American Farmer' that would). This leads the reader to think Trodd is trying to take the road less traveled. But then, she'll use a classic selection but will cut it so oddly that the reader just wonders what on earth she was thinking (imagine Thoreau's 'Resistance to Civil Government' without "the mass of men serve that state with their bodies" section, and you'll see what I mean). So, to some extent, although I am pleased with Trodd's choice of authors, her selections can baffle. I realize, of course, that she was dealing with all the problems that come with an undertaking of this type--trying to get permissions, trying to keep the number of pages down to a manageable level so the publisher will accept the book, etc. I doubt I could have done a better job negotiating these pressures, yet I still find myself wondering what she was thinking. A more serious concern is the lack of apparatus such as footnotes to help the reader understand references and such. There are none, zip, nada of these. Many people need things like the Tet Offensive explained, even briefly, but there is none of that. However, the introductions are good--concise, pointing out key features of the work as it relates to the protest literature tradition, and not attempting to rehash biography that is not relevant to the focus of the book. Overall, this is a very good book that could have been great; I find myself hoping that Trodd will do a second edition that expands on the many fine features of the first but corrects some of its shortcomings.

Review # 3 was written on 2014-02-09 00:00:00 Damar Jones I used this book for my Comp II class, and it was really a hit. The selections are pretty fantastic, and the introductions to each work are useful and give plenty of clear context. I'll definitely use this text again next spring.