A fascinating book, really getting to the heart of the insurrection act, how it is used and how undefined it is as as a US law. It is very dry and as a layman to the subject matter I had to go back a few times to fully understand what was being discussed. That being said, I think this is really insightful and excellently researched.

I was underwhelmed by a lot of things in this book. The first thing being the narration, Miss Allen seems like she is bored with her own text. Not only that I find there a lot of books like this out today where authors like to point at something invented by racist and then explain why it’s racist. To me it is a no brainer but if the interaction law was invented by mostly racist men, then of course they’re going to use it for racist reasons. Not only that close to the end of the book she starts talking about the LA riots and she mentions the beating of Rodney King in the murder of Reginald Denny the truck driver, but her criticism was for president Bush. She said that he was only concerned with the showing the nation he was going to stop the riots and that was his main directive. As a post techs blaming white people mobile hitting and looting in downtown LA. I don’t care what fringe psychiatrist say I will never agree that people ruin other peoples property and steal it to show their frustration. They started saying that when Michael Brown got shot someone else she spoke up and then spoke about Trayvon Martin to me that is apples and oranges. Both sad, but two totally different things. Trayvon Martin was shot by a wannabe cop, he was on the phone with his girlfriend modern his business. Michael Brown on the other hand has just came from assaulting a store owner after stealing cigars. I know I wouldn’t want my son put in the same category as Michael Brown. Yes no one deserves to be judge and jury but still I think those two things are two totally different situations. Having said all this that was one thing she said that amaze me, after writing a whole book about different racist situation in this country. She started talking about the black neighbors in her neighborhood and how they would get together and lament how they couldn’t make home improvements because white people would be jealous. She talked about white people as a collective as if they are one person and do not have individual opinions and different personalities. Whereas when she spoke of the Black people in her neighborhood she wrote the ethnic cities in the countries they came from if not America. I found that quite interesting. How in her story Black people have differences and white people just don’t. Either way this book is well researched and it has great historical text and interesting stories. So if you read it for the historical aspects then you will probably love it. I just wouldn’t get the audiobook the reading was dry and monotone. I really thought I would love this book and I’m sorry I didn’t, but I don’t. I am giving it three stars though because as I said it had great research and some very interesting stories . If you could skip over her contradictory personal stories the rest is pretty good. I was given this book by net galley and I am leaving this review voluntarily. Please forgive any grammatical punctuation errors as I am blind and dictate my review.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an advanced audio copy of this title in exchange for an honest review.

Insurrection by Hawa Allan is the history of insurrections in the United States, the Insurrection Act, and how the government/society has historically been afraid of Black citizens and the possibility of insurrection from those same Black citizens.

Ms. Allan is a lawyer and that definitely comes across in her writing. She is building a case the entirety of the book and making arguments about the use of the Insurrection act throughout American history. This is interspersed with personal anecdotes from her own life.

While I did learn about American history throughout this title, I had a hard time understanding what Ms. Allan was building her case about. She was constantly making arguments and I would find myself going.... "how did we get here? I'm not sure how this is relevant to what we were just talking about." Maybe I am just not smart enough for this title?

The book is narrated by Ms. Allan herself, and it was interesting hearing the inflections in her writing as she intended them. I LOVE when nonfiction books are read by their authors.