Customer Reviews

The 1910s from World War I to Ragtime Music (Decades of the 20th Century in Color)

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The single most exciting thing about The 1910s: From World War I to Ragtime Music is the title of the book. Stephen Feinstein's writing is choppy, about what I would expect from a fifth grade research paper, and he jumps from one topic to the next with little or no transition. In 55 pages of text & pictures about a decade that includes the fall of the Russian Empire, the First World War, the Russian Revolution and so much more, Feinstein chooses to spend 3 full pages on boxing and another full page on a horse race.

In his haste to cram in as much as possible, Feinstein frequently mentions things he never bothers to either explain or illustrate. Thus he speaks about the hobble skirt and the suffragette suit, but the accompanying illustrations show neither. He devotes an entire paragraph to Marcel Duchamp's painting "Nude Descending a Staircase", but no illustration is provided.

Worst of all, the book is very slanted. Almost every time he mentions white Americans he first applies the adjective "racist" and most of the events that he includes in the book reflect this belief. Often inappropriate for school aged children, this book includes pictures of KKK members from the 60s and states that Jack Johnson, a black boxer, "displayed the kind of talent most African Americans longed for. He flaunted his talent and his controversial relationships with white women, to the disgust of many racist white Southerners."

There are no positive events associated with white Americans or America as a nation in this book other than the founding of the Girl Scouts by Juliette Gordon Low. (The illustration is of someone else.)

All in all, not a series we will be using in my classroom.