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Loading... Parting the Waters : America in the King Years 1954-63by Taylor BranchSeries: America in the King Years (1)
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. comprehensive treatment of the civil rights movement (  ) tearley | Sep 28, 2008 |  The first volume of a three volume series of America in the King Years. It won the Pulitzer Prize for History. The trilogy will be the standard for all other histories of the civil rights movement to be judged as literature. The people who stirred the nation and changed the lives of all Americans during the years 1954-1963 are covered by Branch. In addition to King and his twelve disciples, we are presented with insights into the thinking of John and Robert Kennedy, J. Edgar Hoover, and Lyndon Johnson. (  ) mrkurtz | Apr 1, 2008 | 2683 Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-63, by Taylor Branch (read 15 Dec 1994) (Pulitzer History prize [co-winner] in 1989) (National Book Critics Circle nonfiction award for 1988) This tells the story of King through 1963 (he died in April 1968). The recounting of events, especially the Montgomery struggle re the buses, and others, is highly interesting. It is hard to believe how far we have come since those Jim Crow days. The Kennedy record on civil rights was very spotty. King was a great orator, but his sexual weakness is bothersome, as of course is JFK's. I really think the white heat of publicity should shine on those sort of things, let the chips fall where they may. This was a long book--924 pages--and awfully politically correct. But worth reading. ( ) Schmerguls | Mar 27, 2008 | It is difficult to adequately classify Taylor Branch's monumental Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-63, the Pulitzer Prize-winning first volume in Branch's trilogy on the American Civil Rights era. The book is audacious in its scope, brimming with new insights from dozens of interviews with participants. It is epic, not just in narrative or research but in length. In attempting to sort out the religious, cultural, and political waters that propelled and buffeted the Civil Rights movement, Branch explicitly hypothesizes that "[Martin Luther] King's life is the best and most important metaphor for American history in the watershed postwar years." This has many significant consequences, beginning with the genre of the book, which is a mix of biography and narrative history. Branch balances these genres well in his detailed, but also deliberately focused, writing. And while a focus on King seems almost pedestrian from a Civil Rights perspective, Branch is arguing more broadly, I think, and arguing that King is the single most important figure of the age, period. Carefully, but emphatically, Branch is signaling a reassessment of other key figures in the 1960s, especially John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Robert Kennedy. He sees King's story as more central to the era than JFK's Camelot, LBJ's Vietnam, and RFK's populism borne out of social anxiety. Whether Branch entirely succeeds in this provocative thesis is a matter of some debate, particularly as it relates to the other over-arching issue of the period, the Cold War. Branch, through his detailed examination of King's close associate Stanley Levison, who was regarded as a Communist agent by J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI, seems to argue that the Communist threat to the United States, especially domestically, was sensationally overstated by the FBI. While this is true, it does not directly override the Communist threat globally to the US in the era. But this meta-argument is irrelevant to the other historical content of Branch's extremely fine book. He incorporates dozens of characters from the era in detail, emphasizing the multiple people beyond King who shaped and forwarded the Civil Rights movement. While mostly chronological, Branch is not handcuffed by the day-to-day timeline, which allows him to highlight the different perspective's of the people involved "in making history" through their day-to-day decisions and actions. Branch is at his best when dealing with King though, especially as he explores the relationships that King had with the other major participants of the era: government officials, allies, intellectuals, and religious leaders. In fact, it is these last participants who really benefit from Branch's careful analysis: even though Branch focuses extensive attention on the political aspects of the era, he never loses sight of the movement's roots in African-American Christianity (actually, almost entirely Baptist as opposed to African Methodist). And he demonstrates what an odd figure King was among the Baptist ministers of the time, which led to some strained relationships with King and other pastors, including some of those who worked closely with him. In summary, the book is highly recommended. It is elegantly written, and shows the fruits of Branch's significant research. It is informative, entertaining, and moving, and certainly stands as one of the best volumes about both the Civil Rights movement and the American decade chronicled. ( )1  ALincolnNut | Mar 12, 2008 | this book in conjunction with Pillars of Fire left me feeling like i relived the decades (which is how long it took me to read them). i never got to the 3rd, but the two were strong and provoking. theyre something you carry with you, as cliche as that is to write (  ) mortensengarth | Jun 22, 2007 |  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com (ISBN 0671687425, Paperback)The first book of a formidable three-volume social history, Parting the Waters is more than just a biography of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. during the decade preceding his emergence as a national figure. Branch's thousand-page effort, which won the Pulitzer Prize as well as the National Book Critics Circle Award for General Nonfiction, profiles the key players and events that helped shape the American social landscape following World War II but before the civil-rights movement of the 1960s reached its climax. The author then goes a step further, endeavoring to explain how the struggles evolved as they did by probing the influences of the main actors while discussing the manner in which events conspired to create fertile ground for change.Timeline of a Trilogy Taylor Branch's America in the King Years series is both a biography of Martin Luther King and a history of his age. No timeline can do justice to its wide cast of characters and its intricate web of incident, but here are some of the highlights, which might be useful as a scorecard to the trilogy's nearly 3,000 pages. King The King Years (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:23 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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