Every American should know, and understand, the inequities suffered by minorities, but this should be understood within a broad context. I thus felt this was less compelling than the best of histories. In this book, the history is not integrated, it focuses largely on the inequities suffered by minorities, instead of a broad swath including the inequities along with the many scientific, technical, cultural, artistic, and political contributions of minorities. Most of this material was covered back then, and covered in a more integrated way. Perhaps, once upon a time, the history of minorities in the US was not covered in K-12 histories, but for decades (at least in California where I graduated high school in 1976) this has no longer been the case. This (like all histories) distorts in its own way. " A Different Mirror advances a truly humane sense of American possibility." - Henry Louis Gates, Jr.This is book attempts to look at US history through a different mirror by focusing upon the history of various minorities. "While Takaki's subtitle is 'a history of multicultural America,' his book is also a manifesto for the future."- New York Review of Books "A groundbreaker.It's fascinating to watch Takaki weave these multifaceted strands into a single narrative text." - San Francisco Chronicle "An excellent place to start in understanding how this uniquely diverse country came to be and where it is headed."- Christian Science Monitory "One closes the book with a deepened sense of the centrality of ethnicity in the American past." - Washington Post It is clearly not intended to divide Americans but rather to teach them to value the nation's inescapable diversity." - New York Times Book Review
It is a laudable effort - humane, well-informed, accessible, and often inclusive. "Takaki's book is nothing less than an attempt to view all of American history from a multicultural perspective. The research is meticulous, the writing powerful and eloquent, with what can only be called an epic sweep across time and cultures." - Howard Zinn, author of A People's History of the United States "A splendid achievement, a bold and refreshing new approach to our national history.
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