Black History: History in an Hour

By: Rupert Colley

Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble

Length: 1 hr and 24 mins

Publisher's Summary

History for busy people. Black History, or African-American History, looks at the story and culture of black Americans from the seventeenth century to the present day.Encompassing everything from immigration to civil war, emancipation, slavery and migration, Black History in an Hour gives you a neat overview of this vast and fascinating subject.This audio download is a superb introduction to the long and varied history of African Americans.

Love your history? Find out about the world with History in an Hour…

©2012 Rupert Colley (P)2012 HarperCollins Publishers Limited

Missing something...

I guess you can't expect much when you only have an hour. So needless to say there is a lot left out and it seems a bit rushed toward the end (after 1960) since so much of the time was used to discuss slavery and the birth of a new nation. It makes it seem as though nothing important happened from 1960 until the election of Obama. Overall though it hit the high points and called out the main players in black history so it gives a taste of history and not the full story. The imitations of JFK and MLK's voices and diction were not necessary and could have just been read in the regular voice of the narrator and just quoted.

The cliff notes of the cliff notes

A highlight reel of already well known stories of primarily African American history. Briefly glances over some influential and notable contributors. His Black and southern accents were unnecessary and minimizing. The last ten minutes does a super compact mention of South African recent history. The stories told from a Eurocentric view, the story begins with slavery in the U.K, to slavery in America, to South Africa and ending with Barak Obama. Excludes most of the diaspora. Would have been better to limit the story to a specific region and time period.

Fair but too much to cover in an hour and a half

Best to do away with the accents. Too bad the 80's and 90's were skipped.

Good summary however considering the Hour

Awesome

All generations should listen to this comprehensive history lesson of the black plot in the world.

Crash Course in being Black

Phenomal, for only an hour you learn more about black history than all public education

Pronunciation is fundamental

The information in this booklet is wonderful, but the reader's mispronunciation of basic words is disturbing and distracting.

Great Summation

Pros:
Great Summation
Sexy British Narrator

Cons: it's really ... Really annoying when the narrator tries to talk with a southern accent for absolutely every quote from an American regardless of what their actual accent was. Stop it. Minus one star for that.

And one small thing; ending with Barrack is great and touching, but it made it sound like theres nothing left to be done. Let's not allow perceptual complacency stop the progress.

1 of 2 people found this review helpful

Perfect History Lesson's For People On The Go!

I really enjoyed Rupert Colley’s audio book collections of History in an Hour. They teach me so much, and for a busy person like me on the go, it works out great to pick up such informative information of things that I thought that I already knew.

This audio book, Black History: History in an Hour, really “hit the spot” and reminded me of things that I already knew, but at the same time helped me to learn a couple of new things too.

I highly recommend the whole series of “History in an Hour” audio books.

It would make perfect classroom teaching too!

Black history

Telling the Black History or any similar topic in an hour or less is quite a challenge. My opinion: the author made a great job. Obviously, that should just be the starting point for anyone interested in history of human beings. And is there any better way to avoid mistakes than learning from our past? Tevin GM

Civil right history not equal to black history

The title 'Black History' is not necessarily the best title for such a book. A better title is 'Black civil right history.' Nothing was mentioned about black contributions in science, arts and innovation. To me, the book examines more the negative and weaker aspect of black history.

I learned a lot in an hour

I truly enjoyed this bite sized piece of black history. The book takes us from the beginning of slavery right through to the end of the civil rights movement in America and its aftermath. Just one bad point, every time the narrator put on an American accent I cringed, deeply. Can someone please tell him never to do that again please? Thank you.

very informative

Great listen and interesting there was not one moment of boredom as the book had me hooked throughout!!!

Useful Overview

This is a useful overview which highlights the plight of black people and the sheer stupidity and ignorance of Britain and the USA.
They treated people as possessions, or resources, no better than a mule and took decades to level the rights of blacks with whites.

The film "Mississippi Burning" tells the story of one of the events mentioned in this book and is worth watching.