Reviews
Review by: Ira Berlin, Distinguished University Professor, Univ of Maryland - November 15, 2004
"Shane White and Graham White have done it again, capturing that most illusive of all historical quarry-the texture of the past. In allowing us to listen in on slavery, they greatly expand our understanding of the lives of African American slaves. This is a work of great originality and insight."
Review by: David Blight, professor of history, Yale University - November 14, 2004
"With ingenious eyes and ears Shane White and Graham White have crafted a lyrical and original treatment of the musical and spoken culture of American slaves. They have taken the study of slave music and aural traditions to a new dimension. This book is moving testimony to how scholarship can penetrate the transcendent spirit once considered exotic or unknowable, how historians can trace social survival to the human voice in slavery's heart of darkness."
Review by: Branford Marsalis - November 14, 2004
"This rendering of slavery in the United States succeeds-more than any other book I've read on the subject-in giving one a sense of the humanity of the subjects. The combination of thorough, documented research coupled with an audio disc makes The Sounds of Slavery an almost-living text. Shane White and Graham White's book is a joy."
Review by: Robin Kelley, Author of Freedom Dreams - November 14, 2004
"In this remarkable work of innovation and imagination, Shane White and Graham White remind us that history doesn't dwell in ink alone but it sings, shouts, grunts, and whispers. Each page sensitizes the reader to how nearly every facet of life is manifest in sound."
Review by: Leon Litwack, Professor of History, University of California, Berkeley - November 14, 2004
"A work of extraordinary scholarship and originality, Shane White and Graham White probe with sensitivity, authority, and insight the 'soundscape' of slavery, the varied and complex sounds and rhythms of black men and women as they worked, rested, played, prayed, socialized, and buried the dead-the lamentations and chants, the shouts and cries, the songs and hollers, the clapped hands and bodily movements, the speech and laughter, and the drums, banjo, and bones that resonated in the countryside and cities. It was a way to endure enslavement, and a way to transcend it. This is a stunning work, exposing the reader to an expanded documentation of black culture and a unique way of looking at the black experience during slavery."