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Summary: This is a highly readable book with fascinating research.
Review: I found this book to be real page turner on a very real and important historical subject. Far from wooden, the prose is descriptive and explanatory in the best sense. Mr. Ball appears to be giving a very sincere explanation of the results of his research. It is done, in my opinion, without condescension. The back and forth format is necessary for the topic and does not at all detract from the narrative. As a former history teacher, I wish that all high school students could be exposed to this book- both for the subject matter and for the research methods employed.
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Summary: A GIANT STEP TOWARD RACIAL HEALING
Review: Mr. Ball's work will help advance racial healing in America. His honest approach to the story of his family and their slaves, and his willingness to seek forgiveness, will go a long way toward improved understanding between races. Black history, an important part of American history, has been overlooked by whites far too long. W.E.B. Du Bois would ask of Ed Ball, "...not, 'is he black,' but, 'does he know?" Ed knows.
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Summary: a courageous and engaging book. highly recommended
Review: I found this book fascinating and admirable. Mr. Ball's research is impressive in its thoroughness and breadth. For example, how did he discover that many "loyalist slaves" who fought with the British in the Revolution and ended up in England had written memoirs of their lives? Ball gives the full sweep of his own white family history, but can only give partial histories of black families. When he only knows a fragment of someone's life, he gives that fragment, without apology, as testimony to the large, tragic gaps in Black History. This book is courageous, honest and moving. Highly recommended.
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Summary: Great book!
Review: I could not wait to read this book after reading a review in Time magazine. I was not disappointed. This is an amazing account of family history. My husband and I met Mr. Ball at a reading in Berkeley. The bookstore was packed and his two-hour presentation was gripping and imformative. I highly recommend this courageous account of slavery in South Carolina from one man's very personal perspective.
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Summary: A disappointment
Review: This book has been positively reviewed and strongly hyped. I found, however, the writing to be wooden and unimaginative. Further, Mr. Ball's attitude toward the descendants of his family's former slaves was, well, condescending. For example, he comments on the well-maintained buildings in an African-American neighborhood as if he were surprised by them.
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Summary: This is the best example of why I do genealogy
Review: This is how I would like genealogies to read. It is the stories behind all those charts with names & dates that make the people live again. Black, white or purple we all have a heritage that makes us what we are. I did get a little tired of the apologetic approach taken by the author with the descendents of his family's slave. It comes about 250 years too late. If the guilt is still there, he should donate his proceeds from the book to fund a few scholarship programs. The apologies comes across as very condescending to the wonderful african american families who are thriving and growing from their starts with nothing in 1865.
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Summary: interesting family saga
Review: I enjoyed this book, even though its format is sometimes difficult, it jumps around a lot, from past to present, and is not written in a linear style. Also, he spends too much time describing the people he talks to, as if the color and style of some elderly woman's hair or clothes is necessary for the story. But the bottom line is that the story is very interesting, and the book is worth the effort.
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Summary: poor subject choice
Review: found the subject to be apologetic and opinionated
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Summary: Ironic
Review: First the family gets rich by owning slaves; then Ball makes a small fortune by writing about how bad he feels about his family owning slaves.
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Summary: well-written, powerful confrontation with evil and family
Review: This book is a moving and emotionallly powerful exploration and confrontation by one South Carolina-born writer with the moral consequences of the actions of his slave-owning and -selling ancestors. "Slaves in the Family" recounts Edward Ball's painstaking research into the history of his family, the first of whom settled near Charlestion at the end of the 17th century. He learns that his ancestors not only owned slaves,but that 2 family branches were large-scale slave traders, importing human beings directly from West Africa, He searches out descendants of slaves who lived on Ball family plantations, preparing careful geneologies and scrupulously identifying and acknowledging black families as descended from his own white ancestors as well as slave women on the plantations. This is the source of the title; he and these black people are members of the same family. Ball goes further than any other work I have seen in following the historic trail all the way to Sierra Leone, searching not only for descendants of some freed Ball family slaves who settled there, but for African families whose ancestors were sellers of other Africans. Ball's reports of his meetings with these African families are some of the most moving passages in the book. He is not the only person who must struggle to acknowledge evil done by family members in the past. I highly recommend reading this book,especiallly for white folks,as a major contribution to the attempt to reconcile and heal the scars of Americans' shared racial tragedy. Cheryl B
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