Audiobook12 hours
American Tapestry
Written by Rachel L. Swarns
Narrated by Claudia Alick
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
()
About this audiobook
A remarkable history of First Lady Michelle Obama’s mixed ancestry, American Tapestry by Rachel L. Swarns is nothing less than a breathtaking and expansive portrait of America itself. In this extraordinary feat of genealogical research—in the tradition of The Hemmingses of Monticello and Slaves in the Family—author Swarns, a respected Washington-based reporter for the New York Times, tells the fascinating and hitherto untold story of Ms. Obama’s black, white, and multiracial ancestors; a history that the First Lady herself did not know. At once epic, provocative, and inspiring, American Tapestry is more than a true family saga; it is an illuminating mirror in which we may all see ourselves.
Author
Rachel L. Swarns
Rachel L. Swarns has been a reporter for the New York Times since 1995, reporting on domestic policy, the presidential campaigns of 2004 and 2008, the First Lady, and the modern American family. She has also worked for the New York Times in Russia, Cuba, and South Africa, where she served as the Johannesburg bureau chief. She lives in Washington, D.C.
Related to American Tapestry
Related audiobooks
Miss Anne in Harlem: The White Women of the Black Renaissance Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Invisible: The Forgotten Story of the Black Woman Lawyer Who Took Down America's Most Powerful Mobster Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Snow-Storm in August: Washington City, Francis Scott Key, and the Forgotten Race Riot of 1835 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Floating In A Most Peculiar Way: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Truth Be Told: Three Classic Black Women’s Narratives Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Eyes of Willie McGee: A Tragedy of Race, Sex, and Secrets in the Jim Crow South Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Princess of the Hither Isles: A Black Suffragist's Story from the Jim Crow South Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Civil Wars of Julia Ward Howe: A Biography Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gentle Giant of Dynamite Hill: The Untold Story of Arthur Shores and His Family’s Fight for Civil Rights Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAll God's Dangers: The Life of Nate Shaw Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lynching: The Epic Courtroom Battle That Brought Down the Klan Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Black Hands, White House: Slave Labor and the Making of America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fritz Pollard: Pioneer in Racial Advancement Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMarch Forward, Girl: From Young Warrior to Little Rock Nine Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Last Negroes at Harvard: The Class of 1963 and the 18 Young Men Who Changed Harvard Forever Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5American Histories: Stories Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Bosom Friends: The Intimate World of James Buchanan and William Rufus King Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My Long Trip Home: A Family Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mirror to America: The Autobiography of John Hope Franklin Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Of Blood and Sweat: Black Lives and the Making of White Power and Wealth Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Of Greed and Glory: In Pursuit of Freedom for All Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Black Man's President: Abraham Lincoln, African Americans, & the Pursuit of Racial Equality Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ellis Island: A People's History Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Life of a Klansman: A Family History in White Supremacy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Girl in Black and White: The Story of Mary Mildred Williams and the Abolition Movement Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Black Sheep: A Blue-Eyed Negro Speaks of Abandonment, Belonging, Racism, and Redemption Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Jimmie Lee and James: Two Lives, Two Deaths, and the Movement That Changed America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
History For You
Demon Copperhead: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leave the World Behind: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Overstory Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/577 Days of February: Living and Dying in Ukraine, Told by the Nation’s Own Journalists Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Little Book of Hygge: Danish Secrets to Happy Living Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Small Mercies: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Swingtime for Hitler: Goebbels’s Jazzmen, Tokyo Rose, and Propaganda That Carries a Tune Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Astor: The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All the Sinners Bleed: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Valiant Women: The Extraordinary American Servicewomen Who Helped Win World War II Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An American Marriage: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Razorblade Tears: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel: Genius, Power, and Deception on the Eve of World War I Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mary Magdalene: Women, the Church, and the Great Deception Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cuba (Winner of the Pulitzer Prize): An American History Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Necessary Trouble: Growing Up at Midcentury Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Book of Five Rings Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Story of Art Without Men Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Secret History of the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis Thomas Jefferson And The Opening Of The American West Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Lafayette in the Somewhat United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for American Tapestry
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
9 ratings1 review
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A fairly exhaustive genealogy of Michelle Obama's family, backed by some good research. There is sometimes a little too much "Oh, gee!" -- as in "Oh, gee! I didn't know that white slaveowners sometimes impregnated their slaves, did you?" "Oh, gee, I didn't know there were free black people before the Civil War, did you?" And, the constant jumping back and forth in chronology and between different parts of the family could become confusing. Since I read it on Kindle, it was hard to see the family trees (I've found this on other Kindle books, charts are difficult to see clearly), which would have helped track the various branches. Still, I enjoyed reading this.