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The Broken Heart of America: St. Louis and the Violent History of the United States
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About This Book
A searing portrait of the racial dynamics that lie inescapably at the heart of our nation, told through the turbulent history of the city of St. Louis.From Lewis and Clark's 1804 expedition to the 2014 uprising in Ferguson, American history has been made in St. Louis. And as Walter Johnson shows in this searing book, the city exemplifies how imperialism, racism, and capitalism have persistently entwined to corrupt the nation's past. St. Louis was a staging post for Indian removal and imperial expansion, and its wealth grew on the backs of its poor black residents, from slavery through redlining and urban renewal. But it was once also America's most radical city, home to anti-capitalist immigrants, the Civil War's first general emancipation, and the nation's first general strike -- a legacy of resistance that endures. A blistering history of a city's rise and decline, The Broken Heart of America will forever change how we think about the United States.
Reviews
"The epilogue offers hope, however minimal ..."
"Louis has been the crucible of American history,' and his celebration of the city's defiant black culture heightens the book's potency."
"The Broken Heart of America is a history populated by good guys and bad guys—many more of the latter ..."
"Johnson's...occasionally simplistic ..."
"Sometimes his metaphors can get a little overheated ..."
"Johnson's insistence on rooting today's racism in yesterday's conquest of indigenous people and enslavement of kidnapped people from Africa makes The Broken Heart of America a book for our times ..."
"He vividly describes...neighborhoods, personalities, and historical conflicts while emphasizing how segregation, disinvestment, and race-based economic extraction eventually set the stage for Ferguson ..."
"The Broken Heart of America begins with the ancient Indigenous city of Cahokia and then turns to the Lewis and Clark expedition...a story that Johnson uses to great effect ..."
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