Africana Books

Purchasing this book made me face the risks associated with online book purchases. Forbes' subject of analysis seems to keep eluding her, and that pursuit comes across as the only continuing thread of the book. Early references to "the rhetoric of redemptive violence" quickly blurred into a discussion of "righteous violence," "natural right," Black "manliness" and agency. The point is not that these aren't worthy topics of discussion; to the contrary, they clearly have salience for Forbes. The problem is that Forbes spends so much time engaging in polemics that she fails to expose her analysis of these topics in a way that shows her readers what connections she'd like us to draw from them. And the continuing train of malapropisms and gavel-banging only served to distract this reader's attempt to forge the necessary connections. All to say, if I knew then (when I ordered the text) what I know now I would have used my library card instead of my credit card.