This wide-ranging interdisciplinary collection-the first of its kind-invites us to reconsider the politics and scope of the Roots phenomenon of the 1970s. Alex Haley's 1976 book was a publishing sensation, selling over a million copies in its first year and winning a National Book Award and a special Pulitzer Prize. The 1977 television adaptation was more than a blockbuster miniseries-it was a galvanizing national event, drawing a record-shattering viewership, earning thirty-eight Emmy nominations, and changing overnight the discourse on race, civil rights, and slavery.

These essays-from emerging and established scholars in history, sociology, film, and media studies-interrogate Roots, assessing the ways that the book and its dramatization recast representations of slavery, labor, and the black family; reflected on the promise of freedom and civil rights; and engaged discourses of race, gender, violence, and power in the United States and abroad. Taken together, the essays ask us to reconsider the limitations and possibilities of this work, which, although dogged by controversy, must be understood as one of the most extraordinary media events of the late twentieth century, a cultural touchstone of enduring significance.

About the Author
Erica L. Ball is a professor of American studies at Occidental College. She is author of To Live an Antislavery Life: Personal Politics and the Antebellum Black Middle Class (Georgia).

Kellie Carter Jackson is an assistant professor of history at Hunter College, CUNY, and the author of Force and Freedom: Black Abolitionists and the Politics of Violence.


Book Information
ISBN 9780820350820
Author Erica L. Ball
Format Paperback
Page Count 296
Imprint University of Georgia Press
Publisher University of Georgia Press
Weight(grams) 322g