100 Amazing Facts About the Negro Audiobook, by Henry Louis Gates Play Audiobook Sample

100 Amazing Facts About the Negro Audiobook

100 Amazing Facts About the Negro Audiobook, by Henry Louis Gates Play Audiobook Sample
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Read By: Dominic Hoffman Publisher: Random House Audio Listen Time: at 1.0x Speed 9.67 hours at 1.5x Speed 7.25 hours at 2.0x Speed Release Date: October 2017 Format: Unabridged Audiobook ISBN: 9781524755324

Quick Stats About this Audiobook

Total Audiobook Chapters:

163

Longest Chapter Length:

08:59 minutes

Shortest Chapter Length:

05 seconds

Average Chapter Length:

05:19 minutes

Audiobooks by this Author:

8

Other Audiobooks Written by Henry Louis Gates: > View All...

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Publisher Description

The first edition of Joel Augustus Rogers’s now legendary 100 Amazing Facts About the Negro with Complete Proof, published in 1957, was billed as “A Negro ‘Believe It or Not.’” Rogers’s little book was priceless because he was delivering enlightenment and pride, steeped in historical research, to a people too long starved on the lie that they were worth nothing. For African Americans of the Jim Crow era, Rogers’s was their first black history teacher. But Rogers was not always shy about embellishing the “facts” and minimizing ambiguity; neither was he above shock journalism now and then.

 

With élan and erudition—and with winning enthusiasm—Henry Louis Gates, Jr. gives us a corrective yet loving homage to Roger’s work. Relying on the latest scholarship, Gates leads us on a romp through African, diasporic, and African-American history in question-and-answer format. Among the one hundred questions: Who were Africa’s first ambassadors to Europe? Who was the first black president in North America? Did Lincoln really free the slaves? Who was history’s wealthiest person? What percentage of white Americans have recent African ancestry? Why did free black people living in the South before the end of the Civil War stay there? Who was the first black head of state in modern Western history? Where was the first Underground Railroad? Who was the first black American woman to be a self-made millionaire? Which black man made many of our favorite household products better?

 

Here is a surprising, inspiring, sometimes boldly mischievous—all the while highly instructive and entertaining—compendium of historical curiosities intended to illuminate the sheer complexity and diversity of being “Negro” in the world.





Jacket images: (top, left to right, details) Thomas-Alexandre Dumas by Olivier Pichat. akg-images; Map of Spanish Florida and Jackie Robinson, both the Library of Congress, Wash. D.C.; (bottom, left to right) The Redemption of Ham by Modesto Brocos y Gómez. akg-images; Malcolm X,  Keystone Pictures USA/Alamy;  Madam C. J. Walker, the Library of Congress, Wash. D.C.

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A collection of vignettes about the black experience in the United States and around the globe. In 1957, respected Pittsburgh Courier journalist Joel A. Rogers published a book, 100 Amazing Facts About the Negro with Complete Proof, based on research he had conducted for his columns . . . Gates, the prolific scholar and popularizer of black history, presents this book as an homage and update to the work of "Mr. Rogers." . . . The pieces range widely in chronology, theme, and geography, and his facts about the "Negro" (the anachronism is intentional, part of the tribute to Rogers) most heavily emphasize the African-American experience but also explore Africa and the diaspora across the Americas and in Europe . . . Gates surprises . . . intrigues, and rarely disappoints.

— Kirkus Reviews   “Gates pens a corrective yet loving homage to a work of the same title published in 1957 by Joel A. Rogers, a largely self-educated black journalist and historian. 

Quotes

  • One of Publishers Weekly’s Top 10 in History Fall 2017   "Brilliant...The book brims with conversation pieces but also with the pain that is all too evident when discussing the ways enslaved people of African descent lived here in the United States and around the world.... It overflows with interesting information and provides much food for thought.

    — The Washington Post
  • Reading 100 Amazing Facts About the Negro is like taking a tour of black history with a very erudite and accessible guide...Gates’s embrace of a retro book title and structure is particularly interesting in our contemporary moment. He offers an unorthodox approach to learning about African-American history in the era of Black Lives Matter and the Trump presidency...100 Amazing Facts About the Negro offers seeds that may grow among readers into a deeper appreciation of African-American history, one that may render another homage to Rogers unnecessary.

    — Boston Globe
  • Part Encyclopedia Africana, part advanced black studies course, the book unearths little known, often surprising truths about the complex history of the worldwide black diaspora, serving up a sweeping concept in bite-sized chapters... It’s also serendipitous: “100 Amazing Facts” comes as the nation grapples — again — with the scourge of white nationalism, a misguided yet persistent philosophy based on the belief that white men built Western civilization by themselves. In this context, the professor’s meticulously researched book, written in his signature avuncular style, is something of a history smackdown.

    — Minneapolis Star Tribune
  • "This fresh investigation relays centuries of events in the lives of numerous historical figures of Africandescent not only in the U.S. but also in Europe, Central America, and the Middle East. This compilation ofportraits of select soldiers and saints, authors and athletes, royalty and rebels, and escapees andentrepreneurs, provides a much needed foundation for historical and cultural identity. By setting this newstandard, Gate paves the way for future editions exploring achievements in science and technology and thevisual and performing arts.

    — Booklist (starred review)
  • “If Rogers was a black history teacher for the 20th century, Gates is certainly one for ours….Gates is a historian, but he is also a consummate teacher. And one of the charms of the volume is that the essays appear in no particular order, making it ideal for dipping into at will or keeping on a bedside table to pick up before bed. But be forewarned: In the hands of a skilled storyteller like Gates, this fascinating history will definitely not put you to sleep.

    — BookPage
  • From signifying monkeys to small-town West Virginia, from ancient Africa to the new New York, Skip Gates has described the American experience with force, with dignity, and most of all with color. “ —Bill Clinton

  • Gates now stands in the spotlight of African American culture and literary scholarship. He got there through research, an instinct for attention-getting topics, and a driving vision of what African American studies should become.

    — Amy Lifson, National Endowment for the Humanities
  • Because of his generosity and example, we are living in an intellectual community that strives to understand more deeply the history, culture, social movements, and philosophical thought of black people all over the globe. Skip Gates is the teacher who brought me in—called me in—to the work I do. His own committed and prodigious work is ever animated by a true, deep, and abiding love for the creative beauty, brilliance, foibles, and all else of black people.

    — Elizabeth Alexander, Wun Tsun Tam Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University

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About Henry Louis Gates

Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research and the holder of the distinguished Alphonse Fletcher Jr. University Professorship at Harvard. The author of several award-winning works of literary criticism, he also wrote the memoir Colored People; The Future of the Race, coauthored with Cornel West; and Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man.

About Dominic Hoffman

Dominic Hoffman, winner of numerous AudioFile Earphones Awards for narration, is a Los Angeles–based actor of stage, screen, and television. He has appeared in such television shows as The Shield, NYPD Blue, and The Jamie Foxx Show. He attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art as well as the American Conservatory Theater.