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'A provocative look at the racial context for Americans' right to bear arms' New York Times Book Review, Editor's Choice
The Second Amendment:
The right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
Throughout history, the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States has protected the right to bear arms. For Black Americans, this has come with the understanding that the moment they exercise this right (or the moment that they don't), their life – as surely as the lives of Philando Castile, Tamir Rice, Breonna Taylor – may be snatched away in a single, fateful second.
In The Second, historian and award-winning author Carol Anderson illuminates the history and impact of the Second Amendment: from the seventeenth century, when it was encoded into law that the enslaved could not own, carry or use a firearm, to today, where measures to expand and curtail gun ownership continue to limit the freedoms and power of Black Americans. Through compelling historical narrative merging into the unfolding events of recent years, Anderson's investigation shows that the Second Amendment is not about guns but about anti-Blackness, revealing the magnitude of institutional racism in America today.
Published | Jun 10 2021 |
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Format | Ebook (PDF) |
Edition | 1st |
Extent | 272 |
ISBN | 9781526645227 |
Imprint | Bloomsbury Publishing |
Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
The historian Carol Anderson thinks that America's singular relationship with guns reflects its singular history of racism. . . . Anderson's book is a bracing reminder that the defense of rights is not necessarily a liberatory project.
The New Yorker's "Critic's Notebook"
The Second is written with verve, painted with broad strokes and dotted with memorable anecdotes and vivid quotations.
Randall Kennedy, The New York Times Book Review
Compelling ... Backed by rigorous research, Anderson lays out the case that throughout history, Black Americans have largely been restricted from the right to bear arms ... Anderson's book prompts another question: Can a Constitution rooted in anti-Blackness ever be a vehicle for freedom and justice for Black people? The Second is an important opening, and offers an opportunity to rethink our attachment to the Constitution and our entire body of laws.
The Washington Post
A provocative look at the racial context for Americans' right to bear arms, Anderson's forcefully argued new book contends that the Second Amendment was inspired by “fear of Black people” - a desire to ensure that whites could suppress slave rebellions.
New York Times Book Review, Editor's Choice
Absorbing . . . With the nation reeling from a spate of mass shootings and President Biden again pushing for common-sense gun reform, The Second, available June 1, is as timely as some of Anderson's best known books. . . . The Second adds another dimension to the gun debate and proves that it is stained with the anti-Blackness mindset that disfigures every debate from voting to housing, from education to health care.
Boston Globe
The author of the award-winning White Rage targets the Second Amendment in all its moral and legal travesties. From James Madison's capitulation to a slavery-obsessed Patrick Henry, right up to last year's bloody rampage in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Anderson strikes the perfect balance between righteous wrath and intellectual rigor.
Oprah Daily, "20 of the Best New Summer Books to Pick Up This June"
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