Paddy-Wop

American Uprising by Daniel Rasmussen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

American Uprising changed the way I look at the world. The measure of a book to me is

that it teaches me something about something I am interested in and changes my mental image of this subject. In the case of American Uprising that subject was slavery. I never understood the relationship between the sugar islands and the Louisiana Purchase. I knew there were sugar plantations in Louisiana but not to the extent that they existed. Sugar Slavery was different from Slavery in the rest of American states and territories and this book illuminates that difference clearly.

The book's problem is that it lacks the usual historical method of verifying of its conclusions about how the Uprising occurred. The nitty gritty of the uprising is not what is important about this book. The real value of the book is its illumination of slavery in the new American territory. This may not have been what Rasmussen set out to do, but it is what he accomplished brilliantly.




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