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 enlarge | Author: Kareem Abdul-jabbar
Creator: Raymond Obstfeld
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Category: Book
List Price: $26.00
Buy New: $3.21
You Save: $22.79 (88%)
New (11) Used (8) from $3.20
Avg. Customer Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 481741
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.7 x 1.2
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.323092
ASIN: B0013TH6A4
Publication Date: January 30, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 6-8 of 8 | | « PREV | | |
Memoir and History April 12, 2007
The Harlem Renaissance continues to contribute to society today, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar explains why in this memoir.
Standing on the Shoulders of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar April 5, 2007
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
If the winner of six NBA championships and just as many MVP Awards wanted to write a book of passable reflections on the Harlem Renaissance and make it sound like a big deal when it wasn't, he could probably get away with it. Fortunately, that's not what Kareem Abdul-Jabbar chose to do in "On the Shoulders of Giants." He took the opposite route, providing readers with a superior work of lively history, passionate memoir, keen social commentary, and entertaining musical appreciation.
Dozens of books on the Harlem Renaissance have hit the shelves since the 2003 publication of Facts On File's Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance . Few (if any) have illustrated as precisely as "On the Shoulders of Giants" exactly why and how the Harlem Renaissance remains a vibrant cultural and spiritual force. Like other competent authors on the subject, Abdul-Jabbar provides literary snapshots of the major players and events that produced the Harlem Renaissance. Unlike other books, his gives us something more. He includes chapters on how elements of the Harlem Renaissance directly impacted the development of his own life as a son of Harlem and that of others who picked up where the Renaissance left off and kept it going in other forms.
The world knows Kareem Abdul-Jabbar mostly as a champion athlete. In "On the Shoulders of Giants," we meet him as the teen-aged scholar Lew Alcindor working beside famed educator Dr. Henrik Clarke. With Dr. Clarke, Abdul-Jabbar helped publish a weekly journal on Harlem and discovered how his birthplace earned the title "The Capitol of Black America." We see the youth inspired by the world famous Harlem Globetrotters give up his dream to play professional baseball in exchange for a plan to conquer basketball. We meet the great lover of classic black literature, the connoisseur of jazz, and the defender of his beloved community.
Aside from his individual highly informed observations of the Harlem Renaissance proper, Abdul-Jabbar also offers some daring interpretations of the movement. Take, for example, his contention that "The Harlem Renaissance didn't end... [it] pried open a lot of reluctant doors and those who came after learned how to shoulder those doors open even wider. The guiding principles of the Harlem Renaissance survived and flourished." Towards that end, he cites both Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr., as products and embodiments of Harlem Renaissance ideologies. This writer agrees with that assessment.
As important as "On the Shoulders of Giants" is for what it says about the past, it's even more important for what it indicates about the present and the future.
by Author-Poet Aberjhani
author of The American Poet Who Went Home Again
and Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance (Facts on File Library of American History)
 Harlem that I didn't know existed March 26, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
It is an eye opening account of Harlem. I didn't realize that Harlem had such a diverse group of writers, musicians, singers, etc. A very eye opening book.
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