Book Review'- "The Peculiar Institution" by Kenneth M. Stampp

I have always been curious as to how slavery worked from day to day in America and the non-fiction book "The Peculiar Institution" by Kenneth M. Stampp  supplies the answers. From the beginning slavery in America was driven by the profits it produced. Slave labor was obviously cheaper than paid labor so planters and other business owners took advantage of its legality at the time.

 There were of course many rationalizations that slave holders used to justify owning another human being. All of them have proved to be nonsense, but at the time some of the justifications for slavery were widely believed. 

 Although slavery was somewhat successful as a labor system, the author makes a good case that the cruelty of owning another human being was in the end more destructive to slave owners and to the South then any economic benefits from "The Peculiar Institution"

Book Review- Farewell To Manzanar by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston.

When I was a kid, I loved to read about the history of World War Two and I was aware of the internment of Americans of Japanese descent but I never thought much about what it must have been like. "Farewell To Manzanar" is an account of how the internment affected one Japanese-American family.

 After the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, President Roosevelt signed executive order 9066 which eventually resulted in the internment of 110 thousand Americans of Japanese ancestry. Manzanar in Owens Valley, California was one of ten camps scattered throughout the west.

 The Manzanar camp was hastily constructed and not always functional.Although according to the author, there was plenty of food, schooling for the children, and some medical care. Still, Manzanar was basically a prison camp for people whose only crime was being of Japanese descent.

The Manzanar camp was closed Nov. 21, 1945

 In 1988, the US Senate voted to provide compensation for the victims of the internment.