Everything that you wanted to know or needed to know about African American Literature is contained in this eight hundred page volume. This comprehensive volume covers the historical and cultural contexts of African American literature that has been too long neglected.

Oxford's Companion encompasses the traditional genres of poetry, fiction and drama but goes beyond them. It gives the same analysis to special genres such as Slave Narratives, Oratory, Folk Literature, etc. that you don't normally find in reference works of this kind. These special features and others give this book a unique spot in reference works of literature.

From the moment I got this volume in my hands, I couldn't put it down. Its numerous essays, brief biographies and analysis of the various hues of African American Literature was overwhelming and enjoyable. A referance guide such as this should be in every home. It is user friendly, informative and entertaining. Most of all it will give you a deeper appreciation of the vast types of African American literature produced throughout the years.

I purchased this anthology to assist me in my African-American literature class. This book has given me great insight about the literature of African-Americans. Not only does it give great details about the many authors, but it also explains the nature of their many works. I strongly recommend this book to anyone taking an African-American literature course - regardless of the time period.

It was in reading this book out of my public library, when I was about 12 years old, that I got thoroughly and irrevocably hooked on 19th-Century social history and the study of the material artifacts our ancestors used on a daily basis. When I found it in the secondhand bookstore where I was working 10 years later, I snatched it so fast I'm surprised my boss didn't hear a sonic boom! Foster-Harris covers everything from the uniforms of the Civil War veterans who rushed westward after Appomattox in search of a new life, through the weapons they carried, the transportation they made use of, the trails they followed, the homes they built--almost anything you might want to know about--and provides simple but clear illustrations to help you visualize what he's talking about. Some of his "facts," as I've come to learn by checking other sources, aren't quite accurate: he claims, for example, that Western women "never" wore pants or rode astride, but my research has shown that even Eastern females admitted that "these pioneer Western women are of a different breed," and saw no scandal in their riding "Indian-style" (as straddle was delicately called at the time); Mark Twain in his letters tells of at least one maverick lady he knew in the Comstock, and many women who dressed and lived in masculine style, Calamity Jane and "Mountain Charley" Pankhurst not the least, are historically substantiated. But for sheer material detail, his book is hard to beat, and it should be found on the shelf of everyone who writes about, or is curious about, the way Westerners lived in the heyday of the free range.

This book frustrated me incredibly during the one year period i had to use it in my schools Algebra class. This book assumes a lot of unexplained math vocabulary as well as insufficient examples in each chapter. If you are someone who learns primarily from examples and sample problems this book will definetely not fit your needs. There is usually one example for each type of problem in the lesson and it is impossible to practice your learning of that problem because in the homework (that includes answers) there is also usually one problem relating to that specific type of problem. I don't know if what i am saying is making sense but DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK unless you enjoy books with no detailed examples, advanced explanations of concepts you have probably never learned, and boring real world connections. After using this book at my school i checked out a few other books and have found that i really enjoy Algebra when i can actually understand it and apply my skills. I think the book is a major deciding point in a students grades. I think more schools should focus on down to earth, but still informative books and maybe then they would see more effort applied to difficult concepts.

When I write this review, I am really referring to both volumes of the Algebra 1 series. I am a college engineering student and just completed my fourth calculus course. For the past year I have tried to help my younger brother in his Algebra class because this book didn't help at all. Examples are insufficient and the book and tests are riddled with errors. The teacher had to work out all the problems because there were so many mistakes that he could not trust his answer key. A sample of this book's terrible teaching method can be seen when it expects students to use the discriminant to find the nature of the roots for a quadratic equation. It simply has students complete a table in problem number 44 or something and then expects students to be able to tell from the results what the nature of roots for a quadratic equation are on a quiz. Few students succeeded in accomplishing this. In the chapter discussing radicals, the definition of a perfect square is never mentioned! Also students are told to tell the difference between rational and irrational roots by looking at their calculator display. Perhaps if you only use this book as a source for problems, it might be OK. But it is nearly impossible to try and learn something from this book which seems to be fixated on providing pretty graphics instead of relevant examples. My advice: Buy some other Algebra book. It is not possible to put too much effort into the search for a good algebra book because algebra is really the language of science and engineering that needs to become second nature. I haven't seen them myself, but I have heard good things about Algebra 1 by Paul A. Foerster as well as Algebra: Structure and Method by Richard G. Brown, Mary P. Dolciani, Robert H. Sorgenfrey, et. al. You might want to take a look at these books.

I bought this book looking for some self help in the subject of Algebra,It's pretty good except that it does not give all the answers to all the questions,they only do a selected amount of answers,this is really trickey if you don't have an instructor to guide you.I would recommened this book to a person who just wants a review in algebra,I would give it a 5 star rating for that use,but only a 3 star rating for self help.