In this epic, beautifully written masterwork, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Isabel Wilkerson chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities, in search of a better life. From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America. Wilkerson compares this epic migration to the migrations of other peoples in history. She interviewed more than a thousand people, and gained access to new data and official records, to write this definitive and vividly dramatic account of how these American journeys unfolded, altering our cities, our country, and ourselves.
With stunning historical detail, Wilkerson tells this story through the lives of three unique individuals: Ida Mae Gladney, who in 1937 left sharecropping and prejudice in Mississippi for Chicago, where she achieved quiet blue-collar success and, in old age, voted for Barack Obama when he ran for an Illinois Senate seat; sharp and quick-tempered George Starling, who in 1945 fled Florida for Harlem, where he endangered his job fighting for civil rights, saw his family fall, and finally found peace in God; and Robert Foster, who left Louisiana in 1953 to pursue a medical career, the personal physician to Ray Charles as part of a glitteringly successful medical career, which allowed him to purchase a grand home where he often threw exuberant parties.
Wilkerson brilliantly captures their first treacherous and exhausting cross-country trips by car and train and their new lives in colonies that grew into ghettos, as well as how they changed these cities with southern food, faith, and culture and improved them with discipline, drive, and hard work. Both a riveting microcosm and a major assessment, The Warmth of Other Suns is a bold, remarkable, and riveting work, a superb account of an “unrecognized immigration” within our own land. Through the breadth of its narrative, the beauty of the writing, the depth of its research, and the fullness of the people and lives portrayed herein, this book is destined to become a classic.
2 有用 QuietAmbassa 2020-02-29 13:41:49
普通人的生平在一个不普通的历史时期也能像传奇一样。讲故事的方法类似evicted,但感觉胜于evicted
0 有用 月亮脸 2024-01-07 12:50:41 上海
Brett的课 读了序
1 有用 Queenie 2013-07-28 13:26:04
I'm translating it.
0 有用 Le Flaneur 2021-06-23 09:15:40
两个黑人男性在平权运动中作出了伟大的贡献,但在私人生活中都是渣男,太典型了,克服得了生活的苦痛,克服不了自己的那根吊
2 有用 onlylonely 2021-03-22 12:31:11
意外好看的大部头。除了很多明显的优点——流畅又冷静的写作,个人叙事与大背景铺陈的完美结合,对画面感的生动营造——之外,这个时刻读这本书,它直连到了我心里面去。从中国来美国已经快要十二个年头,在我的身体里面,故土与新乡到底是怎样的取舍。也许许多经历大迁徙的黑人不一定过得好,甚至他们在城市出生的后代还难免地被拽入毒品、犯罪等漩涡中,但当年能够拼了自己的全力做出「选择」,那个动作本身已经是意义。
0 有用 月亮脸 2024-01-07 12:50:41 上海
Brett的课 读了序
0 有用 Ava 2023-09-14 07:08:31 湖南
三个不同阶级的人物,三种离家向北的理由,三种不同的结局,郁郁不得志的痛苦,过于得志的内心也痛苦,唯一的一位女性的家庭氛围倒是很让人羡慕,但那也是建立在她对这个家庭几十年任劳任怨的基础上换来的,我觉得她个人对种族歧视是不怎么在意的,属于沉默的大多数,她受到的教育和她的性格都决定了她对黑人抗争白人的活动是无动于衷,她没有对种族的执念,只有对阶级的执念,她的内心没有这样一股愤怒之火,所以她没有折磨自己,... 三个不同阶级的人物,三种离家向北的理由,三种不同的结局,郁郁不得志的痛苦,过于得志的内心也痛苦,唯一的一位女性的家庭氛围倒是很让人羡慕,但那也是建立在她对这个家庭几十年任劳任怨的基础上换来的,我觉得她个人对种族歧视是不怎么在意的,属于沉默的大多数,她受到的教育和她的性格都决定了她对黑人抗争白人的活动是无动于衷,她没有对种族的执念,只有对阶级的执念,她的内心没有这样一股愤怒之火,所以她没有折磨自己,她的人生是最平和的。但是其他两位主人公,他们的一生都在治愈这种痛苦,赌场和出轨,家庭由此松散。 很好的一本书,由浅入深的解释了great migration,作者问的那个问题,到底是离开的更成功,还是留下的活得更好,我也想知道 (展开)
0 有用 公主 2022-04-08 01:10:14
The Migration was its own point.
0 有用 Le Flaneur 2021-06-23 09:15:40
两个黑人男性在平权运动中作出了伟大的贡献,但在私人生活中都是渣男,太典型了,克服得了生活的苦痛,克服不了自己的那根吊
0 有用 Baristina 2021-04-06 03:03:06
题材是好的,调查也很扎实。但是作者总讲车轱辘话是怎么回事,几章前已经讲了的事情后面又几乎原话提一遍。传记中间穿插作者的社会评论,which,本可以integrate进故事里完全没必要另开一章…… 总之就是,删掉1/3应该是本好书