Rating: 
Summary: made our book group think
Review: Our book group, made up of mainly senior citizens, was unanimous in agreement that this is a book worth reading. We felt it was a little long and tedious in parts. However, we all learned something about slavery and the people involved. We do have two questions--Is the author married? and How did he finance all the traveling involved? Neither of these questions is any of our business, but we are interested. A good book.
Rating: 
Summary: fascinating topic, but slow read
Review: I love non fiction, especially books that take me where I've never gone before. I don't ask for excitement on every page, but I do like to get a sense of a different time or place. This book is excruciatingly exact in details, but they're not details of general, historical interest. True, there are just scraps of information to go by, but they could have been fleshed out by what is known from other sources. Ball limited his book to what he found and what people told him, and painstakingly details what he found and who told him what. This is boring. Who cares whether someone was wearing pressed pants and eating chicken? To his credit, he told a story whose time is long overdue, he just needed a better editor.
Rating: 
Summary: Moving, Exciting. History brought to life
Review: Mr. Ball's account of his family and the slaves they owned is moving and compassionate. Being a Southerner myself I found it fasinating how he researched his distant cousins who were decended from slaves. Very moving and brave. Easy to see why this book won the national book award. Anyone interested in where our country has been and where it's going should read this book.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent for Southern history lovers.
Review: An excellent book, outlining one man's search into his family's history, and what he found. Extremely intersting if interested in the history of the South, slavery and how the families of the (former)slaveholders felt as well the families of the slaves felt. As well as how both sides have come to grips with their shared past.
Rating: 
Summary: Selling a Heritage
Review: Poor writing and an anti-intectual emotionalism harms this book irreparably. Because it attaches to the popular cliches about race, it has nevertheless been assured success. Such is the case with the deplorable state of book publishing today.
Rating: 
Summary: OK
Review: too much detail on who's wh
Rating:
Summary: It could have been much better.
Review: As Mr. Ball's cousin several times over (yes, those plantation families did intermarry through the generations!), I picked up this book with great interest. While I admire his research, I was disappointed in both his prolixity and, at times, his tone. He needs editing, and he needs to lose some of his adopted New York snottiness. He also needs to deal with the human beings he describes more fairly. Both whites and blacks become caricatures: The blacks are all noble and dignified, the whites all buffoons. In both cases, it's a lot more complicated than that. We are all human beings; we all have our strengths and our weaknesses. While I am closer to his view than to that of my parents and grandparents, Mr. Ball has completely missed the point about the slave system and its effects: that even good people can do evil things, and not even realize that they've done wrong -- and I believe that most of our ancestors were essentially good people who went with the wrong flow. A more thoughtful, clear-eyed look at the system, less intent on expressing guilt and assigning blame, might have been more ultimately satisfying to read. But I'm grateful for the work he has done.
Rating:
Summary: Very quick read, very well documented, very interesting
Review: I found this book to be very interesting. I began reading it and couldn't put it down. Mr. Ball has done a wonderful job documenting the information and I found the pictures of family members, as well as the maps of the plantations, helpful in keeping everyone straight. Definitely a MUST READ for anyone interested in the South in early American history, the American Civil War, relations between slaves and plantation owners as well as their families. A very good book!
Rating:
Summary: good history - not good reading
Review: This is an excellent history book, but the writing is not as good. Mr. Ball is a journalist & reading this book is like reading a 500 page newspaper article. The chapters are long & very detailed. I picked this book up for my book group and am glad to have broadened my horizons, so to speak. If you're interested in southern history, this book is good from that perspective - just don't expect a quick and easy read.
Rating:
Summary: A historiography as well as a geneology
Review: I agree with the readers who have recognized the different style Ball uses. However, I took that very differently. Once I saw the way the book was going to unfold, I accepted that he was taking us on the journey he travelled while researching the book. The book is as much a chronicle of the investigation as it is of the Ball family. Besides, after reading Faulkner, I have learned not to critique Southern writers for non-linear writing structure! That's not to say the format wasn't at times frustrating, but I do think it well-served its purpose.
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