By Ibram X. Kendi
Four Hundred souls is a unique one-volume ”community” history of African Americans. The editors, Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain, have assembled ninety brilliant writers, each of whom takes on a five-year period of that four-hundred-year span. The writers explore their periods through a variety of techniques: historical essays, short stories, personal vignettes, and fiery polemics. They approach history from various pespectives; through the eyes of towering historical icons or the untold stories of ordinary people; through places, laws, and objects. while themes of resistance and struggle, of hope and reinvention, course through the book, this collection diverse pieces from ninety different minds, reflecting ninety different perspectives, fundamentally deconstructs the idea that Africans in America are a monolith-instead it unlocks the starting range of experiences and ideas that have aleays existed within the community of Blackness.