Four star review, originally posted here on April 21, 2024.
This book felt like Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, but dripping with snark. Or at times like Alexandria Petri’s US History: Important American Documents (That I Made Up), but with nothing made up. The history is all real history, but this is not a typical dry non-fiction tome. It is saturated with opinions, personal anecdotes, and humor. Fair warning: if you are a fellow white person and cannot handle some scathing jabs directed your way, then this is not the book for you. Here, here’s a good test: If someone implied that your entire race is gross/dumb/otherwise subpar because you do not typically use washcloths, will you be personally offended? If so… maybe skip this one. Go read A Black Women’s History of the United States by Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross instead. That book’s about as unfunny as they come, and does a way better job covering women of cover (here in Harriot’s book, women get a single chapter for themselves. Giving women a single chapter is like giving black people a single month. It’s like… yeah, thanks for the shout-out I guess, but isn’t the whole end goal to not HAVE to be splitting out groups?) But I digress.
I learned a lot from this book (though, of course, I’d also heard plenty of it before.) Content-wise, this was undeniably great. The tone and approach, though, is going to vary widely based on personal preference. I love a bit of humor and sarcasm in my non-fiction reading, so for the most part I was a fan (if you want something straightlaced, see above paragraph). Harriot brought up lots of interesting perspectives and opinions, some of which I agreed with, and some of which I didn’t. But I appreciated the food for thought. He had little quizzes and activities at the end of each chapter that mostly hit the mark.
Organizationally, though, this thing was kinda all over the place. Harriot wove in personal stories that at times lasted just a bit too long, or felt too off-topic, for me to appreciate their inclusion. At some points the link was poignant, but for the most part the personal stories felt like fluff. The last thing keeping this from being a 5 star read for me was that I just didn’t find Harriot that funny. Sure, some jokes totally hit, like the Racist Baby bit, or suggesting white readers will have a conniption (whatever that is!) if someone suggest The Beatles aren’t the best band of all time. I even chuckled at the washcloth joke… the first time. But dang, dude… how many times can you make the same washcloth joke?
Bottom line: This is definitely worth a read. You get to learn plenty of great stuff, and the voice isn’t too stuffy. But the tone and structure isn’t for everyone.
Helga without the H 