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| Roots: The Saga of an American Family | 
 enlarge | Author: Alex Haley
Creator: Michael Eric Dyson
Publisher: Vanguard Press
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
Buy New: $4.93
You Save: $11.02 (69%)
New (9) Used (14) Collectible (6) from $4.38
Avg. Customer Rating:  171 reviews
Sales Rank: 7761
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Paperback
Edition: Anv
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 899
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.7 x 2
Dewey Decimal Number: 929.20973
ASIN: B000WHAZLA
Publication Date: May 22, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Great Read February 22, 2006
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book is really eye-opening. I learned a lot about slavery in the US, and by extension, a lot about African cultures.
The first half, about African abductee Kunte Kinte, is great. The second half, about Kunte's descendents, was less interesting to me. Throughout, the prose is about on par with Michener.
All in all, a great read.
Freedom December 10, 2005
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Alex Haley's fascinating search for his own human roots is a reconstruction of a nearly superhuman struggle for survival and freedom.
The magical evocation of a coming of age in Africa in the 18th century is brutally stopped by a barbarous capture by slave-traders. After the 'whipping' hardship of the transatlantic cross-over follow the harsh labour and living conditions on a cotton field workcamp: 'The life of a field hand was the life of a farm animal ... black people with destroyed minds acted like goats and monkeys.'
All attempts to escape to freedom ('rather die a free man on the run than live out his life as a slave') fail.
The inhuman selling of blacks by the white owners tears all black families apart ('work a thousand years for a white man you still any black').
The struggle to amass enough capital to buy their families free becomes finally superfluous by the victory of the North over the South. The African generation survives till the present day (Alex Haley himself).
The fate inflicted on the author's ancestors is part of 'all of history's incredible atrocities against fellowmen, which seems to be mankind's greatest flaw.'
With Alex Haley, one can only wonder 'that it's possible to be civilized with one another without treating as human beings those whose blood, sweat and mother's milk made possible the life of privilege they had.' But, 'it is the way of the world that goodness is often repaid by badness.'
With this profoundly human and deeply moving book, Alex Haley erected an eternal statue for the African American.
A must read.
 Plagarized November 13, 2005
9 out of 17 found this review helpful
It's a compelling read, but:
According to www.martinlutherking.org
What's truly amazing, however, is that "Roots" is receiving a reverential tribute at all. For while the miniseries was a remarkable - and important - piece of television,
the book on which it was based has now been widely exposed as a historical
hoax.
Unfortunately, the general public is largely unaware of how Haley's monumental family autobiography, stretching back to 18th-century Africa, has been discredited.
Indeed, a 1997 BBC documentary expose of Haley's work has been banned by U.S. television networks - especially PBS, which would normally welcome such a program.
Coincidentally, the "Roots" anniversary comes amid the growing scandal over disclosures of historian Stephen Ambrose's multiple incidents of plagiarism. Because as Haley himself was forced to acknowledge, a large section of his book -
including the plot, main character and scores of whole passages - was
lifted from "The African," a 1967 novel by white author Hal Courlander.
According to Wikipedia:
Alex Haley researched Roots for 12 years; the Roots TV series adaptation aired in 1977. The same year, Haley won a Pulitzer Prize for the book and the Spingarn Medal as well. Haley's fame was marred by plagiarism charges, and after a trial, he was permitted to settle out-of-court for $650,000, having admitted that he copied large passages of Roots from The African by Harold Courlander. In 1988 Margaret Walker also sued him, claiming Roots violated the copyright for her novel Jubilee. The case was dismissed by the court. Reportedly he paid her a civil judgement of $650,000 for plagiarism.
Haley's work is controversial for other reasons. He has been accused of fictionalising true stories in both his book Roots and The Autobiography Of Malcolm X. X's family and members of The Nation of Islam accused Haley of changing selected parts of his story.
What a shame
 Why Is This Novel Always Shelved InThe Non-Fiction Section? September 23, 2005
8 out of 14 found this review helpful
The novel Roots tells the story of the ancestors of the late black power-era writer Alex Haley. Haley, who was an ardent genealogist as well as a journalist and biographer, managed the difficult feat of tracing his family tree back into and beyond the time of slavery in the southern United States, and even went on to discover the exact west African village from which his several-times-great-grandfather came to America in the mid-1700's. Roots, with its descriptions of kidnapping, brainwashing, cultural thievery, physical cruelty and cultural endurance among an oppressed peoples taken from the post-stone age jungles to pre-industrial America-what culture shock that must have been for an unprepared race--makes for an at times dismal, at other times inspiring read. In the 1970's Roots served as a focal point of awakening, not only among those of African descent but for peoples of all ethnicities, to learn about their own familial heritage and discover their genetic roots.
One criticism I do have about this novel, a point that has long dismayed me, is why Roots, clearly a work of fiction with only a tenuous connection to real events and individuals, is almost always to be found presented in non-fiction sections of book stores and libraries, when surely it must be acknowledged by all that this is at best a "non-fiction novel" and more accurately, no less a work of imagination than, say, any of the historical writings of Margaret George or Edward Rutherfurd. This blatant pandering to a false idea of what is and is not fiction I do not get.
I enjoyed most of the experience of reading Roots, but I was not enchanted by it. I do think I can understand why many people found the reading of this novel a therapeutic experience, and I respect that, even while I did not have a similar result, myself.
Addendum, 7-27-06. I have recently learned that the book Roots is even more a fictional construct than I'd thought it was when I wrote my original review. Haley fabricated nearly the whole of this work. It is largely a story crafted in one man's imagination. Reportedly a recent BBC documentary, so far unbroadcast in the United States, exposed this novel as the lie it is. There are those in the mainstream literary community who go so far as to seek to have Alex Haley's numerous awards posthumously revoked. While I always knew Roots was greatly "fleshed out" by its author, and expressed puzzlement at why it was not shelved among other fiction titles, I did give him credit for research into his family history, which it now seems reliably established, he did not undertake. While at least some of the more recent forebears Haley wrote about apparently did exist, many others, especially the branch of the family in 18th century Africa, appear to be total fictions. Sadly, Roots is a fraud and a deception of Howard Hughes-diary-like magnitude imposed on society. It's not a bad novel, although one with a heavy, somewhat bigoted message, but it is NOT a work of non-fiction.
Fabulous book; needed more editing September 17, 2005
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I thought it could have used more tight editing in that it was a bit long in places. The portion in Africa and the boat ride over for instance took almost 200 pages and dragged in places. Regardless of that, I couldn't put it down. I found myself staying up late night after night to read it. The amount of work and dedication Mr. Haley put into this is phenomenal. Although my family didn't come to America until the late 1800's on my dad's side and the early 1900's on my mother's, I'm still ashamed by what the early settlers here did to the African Americans and Native Americans. I can't wait to watch the Mini-Series now though. I can only hope it was true to the book.
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