Roots Summary
Alex Haley

Roots: The Saga of an American Family by Alex Haley Born in Ithaca, New York, in 1921, Alex Haley was raised in Henning, Tennessee, by his maternal grandmother. Haley heard stories during his child... Read more

Alex Haley (1921-1992) is the celebrated author of Roots: The Saga of an American Family (1976). By April 1977 almost two million hardcover copies of the book had been sold and 130 million people had ... Read more

Alex Haley's reputation in the literary world rests upon his much-acclaimed historical novel, Roots: The Saga of an American Family (1976). Haley's tracing of his Afro-American ancestry back to a tin... Read more

Critical Essay by Ali A. Mazrui In terms of political impact, the three most important literary milestones may well turn out to be, first, the publication of Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncl... Read more

Critical Essay by Nancy L. Arnez Roots, meaning the beginning, captures the essence of an African people. It is the cultural history laid bare upon the canvas of time devoid of the misconceptions and... Read more

Critical Essay by Michael G. Cooke Perhaps it is time … to take a close, steady look at the phenomenon that is Roots: what lies at the bottom of its pandemic appeal, what magic does it proffer... Read more

Critical Essay by Arthur Unger "Roots," which, on television at least, started out as an entertainment and evolved into a sociological phenomenon, has finally turned into a self-contain... Read more

Critical Essay by Janet Maslin In its seventh and final installment, "Roots: The Next Generations" changes shape. Set in the 1960's, it presents an Alex Haley who is a more compl... Read more

Critical Essay by David Herbert Donald As the reconstruction of a genealogy, Haley's [Roots] is a tour de force…. [It] reminds us how even in appallingly adverse circumstances blacks of... Read more

Critical Essay by Russell Warren Howe After a decade of research in Africa, Europe and the United States [Alex Haley] was able to piece together his family tree. [Roots], although represented as nonf... Read more

In the following essay, Blayney discusses similarities between the Roots portrayal of Africans and the portrayal of North Americans as the mythical “noble savage.” Time Magazine calle... Read more

In the following essay, Fishbein discusses the merits and shortcomings of the use of television drama as a medium for preserving history. Roots was the sleeper of the 1976-77 television season, sur... Read more

In the following essay, West questions the veracity of Haley's ancestral and historical claims in Roots. As long ago as the mid-eighteenth century, a Negro slave from North America who had b... Read more

In the following essay, Gerber examines the social and popular culture phenomenon of Roots-inspired interest in family ancestry and African culture. For the moment let us withhold judgment and cons... Read more

In the following essay, Boyd examines passages in Roots that author Harold Courlander charged were plagiarized from his novel, The African. Plagiarism is a concept and a practice that can be traced... Read more

In the following essay, Othow discusses Roots as a modern epic that has wide cultural appeal because it embodies the ongoing human search for meaning. An exploration of a very representative body o... Read more

One's dignity may be assaulted, vandalized and cruelly mocked, but it cannot be taken away unless it is surrendered. Living in agony, many people give up their identity and surrender to the evil. Kunt... Read more