Reviews
Really fantastic and in-depth. At times I felt like it was taking a long time to read, but it was never slow or boring. Highly recommended.
Before reading this book I knew only vague, fairly inaccurate facts about Malcolm X. This book opened ,y eyes immensely to the depth of the man and the situation. Marable creates an incredibly readable narrative that draws the reader in whether novice or academic. Speaking as one who has been in the academic circles, this book lacks in a couple key historiographical areas which kept me from giving the book five stars instead of four. First, something Marable says in the introduction (I cannot remember the exact words) indicates that he might harbor a slight sense of bias in favor of Malcolm X. I did not detect bias through the rest of the book but that section of the introduction remained in the back of my mind as I read. Second, Marable frequently uses quotations yet nowhere are those quotes linked to his source documentation in the text itself. The notes are listed at the end of the book which places the onus on the reader to remember the exact wording (endnote number is not used) and page number if he wishes to discover the original source of the quotation. I understand that the general public may be off put by frequent interruption of the text with numbers. However, I do not believe that is an excuse to leave any documentation unclear. Overall, I thought that this was a well written book and definitely recommend it.
