Reviews
"When it comes to the history of racism and exclusion in the United States, St. Louis wasn't unique...what it was, Johnson says, was more extreme...Johnson is a spirited and skillful rhetorician, juggling a slew of historical facts while never allowing the flame of his anger to dim...As he ably shows, so much exploitation lies in the details."-- New York Times, " The Broken Heart of America is an outraged dissection of a malignant pattern Johnson discerns in the way white St. Louis treated Native Americans and then Blacks...Comprehensive and convincing in its particulars."-- Boston Globe, "When it comes to understanding the power dynamics that sparked the Ferguson Uprising in St. Louis, this is absolutely the most important book you'll read. Walter Johnson has a Baldwin-esque ability to describe the raw emotions of Black life in the city. With stories heartbreaking yet rivetingtold by someone brave enough to share themhe exposes the history of white supremacy and capitalism, class struggle and race, and Black rebellions both before and after Ferguson. In the era of fake news and mock revolutions, this book is the truth."-- Tef Poe, musician, activist, and cofounder of Hands Up United, "Walter Johnson's latest is a masterpiece that both haunts and inspires: at once a personal reckoning; a sweeping 200-year history of removal, racism, exclusion, and extraction; and a story that powerfully lifts up the human beings who, in 2014, stood together in Ferguson to demand accountability for the layered injustices that have so scarred not just one citybut America itself."-- Heather Ann Thompson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and its Legacy, "The thread that runs through this entire book is the historical relationship between US imperialism, Indian removal, and anti-Black racism. Although also a granular history of the city of St. Louis, The Broken Heart of America is a deep history of the United States' continental empire with St. Louis at the center of economic and military operations. This may be the most important book on U.S. history you will read in your lifetime."-- Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, author of An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States, "Gateway. Ghetto. Ground Zero. Blues. This is St. Louis, unmoored from myths and exposed by one of our finest historians. Walter Johnson finds in this romanticized and reviled city the nucleus of racial capitalism and American empire and a story of dispossession, disaster, extraction, containment, and deathlots of death. A heartland broken, but not a heartless tale, for it is here we discover Black, Brown, and Native communities with heart, workers with heart, organizers fighting to bring justice to the heart of the city and the nation. After reading this book, you will never think of St. Louis or U.S. history the same way."-- Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original, "When it comes to the history of racism and exclusion in the United States, St. Louis wasn't unique...what it was, Johnson says, was more extreme.... Johnson is a spirited and skillful rhetorician, juggling a slew of historical facts while never allowing the flame of his anger to dim.... As he ably shows, so much exploitation lies in the details."-- New York Times, "Walter Johnson has written a magisterial book. Using the sordid history of St. Louis, he weaves a tale of violence and betrayala story of the removal of peoples and the taking of land by force and by zoningthat helps the reader understand the glaring contradictions that define the United States today. Even the killing of Michael Brown in 2014 must be understood against the backdrop of the long history of greed, extraction, and racism that shaped the city of St. Louis and this country. The Broken Heart of America isn't a dispassionate treatment of historical facts: Johnson has written a searing history that matters deeply to him, a native son, and it should matter to all of us."-- Eddie S. Glaude, author of Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own
