Roots: The Saga of an American Family (Modern Classics) - Hardcover

Haley, Alex

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0517208601 ISBN 13: 9780517208601

Publisher: Random House Value Pub, 2000

Synopsis

This "bold...extraordinary...blockbuster..." (Newsweek magazine) begins with a birth in an African village in 1750, and ends two centuries later at a funeral in Arkansas. And in that time span, an unforgettable cast of men, women, and children come to life, many of them based on the people from Alex Haley's own family tree.

When Alex Haley was a boy growing up in Tennessee, his grandmother used to tell him stories about their family, stories that went way back to a man she called "the African" who was taken aboard a slave ship bound for Colonial America. As an adult, Alex Haley spent twelve years searching for documentation that might authenticate what his grandmother had told him. In an astonishing feat of genealogical detective work, he discovered the name of "the African"--Kunta Kinte, as well as the exact location of the village in West Africa from where he was abducted in 1767.

While Haley created certain unknown details of his family history, ROOTS is definitely based on the facts of his ancestry, and the six generations of people--slaves and freedmen, farmers and lawyers, an architect, teacher--and one acclaimed author--descended from Kunte Kinte. But with this book, Haley did more than recapture the history of his own family. He popularized genealogy for people of all races and colors; and in so doing, wrote one of the most important and beloved books of all time, a true Modern Classic.

About this title

Review:

Praise for "Roots"
"The book is an act of love, and it is this which makes it haunting.""New York Times"
"A gripping mixture of urban confessional and political manifesto, it not only inspired a generation of black activists, but drove home the bitter realities of racism to a mainstream white liberal audience.""Observer"
"Groundbreaking""The Associated Press"
"A Pulitzer Prize-winning story about the family ancestry of author Alex Haley[and] a symbolic chronicle of the odyssey of African Americans from the continent of Africa to a land not of their choosing.""Washington Post"
"Philadelphia Tribune," 6/7/16
[A] landmark book. Marian Wright Edelman
"

Praise for Roots
"The book is an act of love, and it is this which makes it haunting."--New York Times
"A gripping mixture of urban confessional and political manifesto, it not only inspired a generation of black activists, but drove home the bitter realities of racism to a mainstream white liberal audience."--Observer
"Groundbreaking"--The Associated Press
"A Pulitzer Prize-winning story about the family ancestry of author Alex Haley...[and] a symbolic chronicle of the odyssey of African Americans from the continent of Africa to a land not of their choosing."--Washington Post
Philadelphia Tribune, 6/7/16
"[A] landmark book."--Marian Wright Edelman
Praise for Roots

"The book is an act of love, and it is this which makes it haunting."--New York Times

"A gripping mixture of urban confessional and political manifesto, it not only inspired a generation of black activists, but drove home the bitter realities of racism to a mainstream white liberal audience."--Observer

"Groundbreaking"--The Associated Press

"A Pulitzer Prize-winning story about the family ancestry of author Alex Haley...[and] a symbolic chronicle of the odyssey of African Americans from the continent of Africa to a land not of their choosing."--Washington Post

Philadelphia Tribune, 6/7/16
"[A] landmark book."--Marian Wright Edelman

From the Publisher:

The extraordinary account of Alex Haley's own twelve-year search for his family's origins

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House Value Pub
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0517208601
• ISBN 13: 9780517208601
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 688