My Amazon Review of Colson Whitehead's "Harlem Shuffle"

 

Harlem Days, Harlem Nights in the Early 1960’s

 

Colson Whitehead paints a portrait of Harlem from 1959-1964 through the eyes of furniture store owner and family man Ray Carney. Through it all we learn all about the furniture styles and brands of the early 1960’s, a travelogue if you will. Aside from his day job running his furniture store Carney supplements his income as a part-time fence for stolen goods. His cousin Freddie continuously gets him into and at the outset Freddie is part of a safety deposit box heist at the famed Hotel Theresa. Simply put, to steal from the Hotel Theresa is a crime against the community, but no matter it happens, and Carney is there to fence some of the stolen goods.

 

Along the way we meet the Harlem equivalent of Damon Runyan gangsters with names like “Miami Joe.” We also witness what I would call scenes from the class struggle in Harlem where Carney tries to join an exclusive club of local business leaders.

 

The book ends against the backdrop of the July 1964 riots where Carney and his employees had to stand guard to protect their store along with Freddie getting Carney in real big trouble with the family of a major and very entitled real estate developer.

 

This book is far lighter than Whitehead’s “The Nickel Boys” (See:Shulmaven: My Amazon Review of Colson Whitehead's "The Nickel Boys" ) and in my opinion, it is not a good, but well worth the read. You get a real sense of Harlem in the early 1960’s and it makes you wonder about how much or how little change there has been.

For the full amazon URL see: Harlem Days, Harlem Nights in the Early 1960's (amazon.com)

My Amazon Review of Susan Schulten's "A History of America in 100 Maps"

Map Geek

I must confess that I am a map geek and there are some really terrific historical maps in Denver University Professor Susan Schulten’s book of 100 maps. I especially liked the maps portraying the slave trade, the Anglo-French rivalry over North America in the 1700s, the 1823 map that made manifest destiny so evident 20 years before the phrase was coined, Sherman’s use of census maps to plan his march through Georgia, Harlem nightlife in the 1930s, the 1961 Freedom Rides and Disneyland.

My problem with her book is what she leaves out, her negative characterizations of industry and she is way too equivalent with to the Cold War. To me any map book on the history of America would have to include three maps on the wiring of America. Specifically the electrical, telephonic and internet grids. The same holds true for the expansion of the railroads. Her comment on the railroads largely follows the populist narrative not how the strategic vision of Abraham Lincoln bound the nation with the Pacific Railway Act. It is obvious to me that she is not familiar with Robert Gordon’s now classic “The Rise and Fall of American Growth.”

With respect to the Cold War she views it more as a big power rivalry rather than in Ronald Reagan’s words a fight against “the focus of evil in the modern world.”

We were the good guys. She soft pedals the role of Soviet agents in the counsels of government by calling them “a few civil servants in the Roosevelt and Truman administrations.” I don’t think Alger Hiss at State and Harry Dexter White at Treasury viewed themselves as cogs in the bureaucracy.

Those criticisms aside, there is much to be learned from Susan Schulten’s book. Look at the maps and read the commentary with a critical eye.

For the full amazon URL see: https://www.amazon.com/review/RYPW1A2TGM0ZS/ref=pe_1098610_137716200_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv