Customer Reviews

BONES IN THE BASEMENT

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I give the book a 3 star. It wasn't what I thought. It was quite technical and touched minimally on the topic.

What struck me as unjust was the author's focusing on the slave who was purchased by seven white doctors to dig black folks up in order to be used for dissection. He devotes an entire chapter and even has a picture of him. However, he fails to do the same for the seven doctors who owned him. I see this as being another way exploiting the powerless. I guess ruffling Black feathers are okay, but not a good thing for white ones. The families of the slave owners might take issue with him exposing their ancestor.

I found this book compelling and thought-provoking. The researchers clearly knew their methodology, and outline the anthropological sections in almost painstaking detail. The book is an excellent source for those interested in 19th century cultural and medical history, and was perhaps even the authority on certain aspects of those subjects before Michael Sappol's recent book, "A Traffic of Dead Bodies," came out a few years ago. HOWEVER, I am wary about some of the chapters, now, because I found a major typo in one section, where it stated that "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was written by Louisa May Alcott (clearly not true). I am quite surprised that the Smithsonian Institute allowed such a glaring error to be printed by their press. Although each chapter is written by a different author, and so this error could be the result of one person's mistake only, it does cast doubt on the validity and conclusions reached in the rest of the book.