Review: Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America by Ari Berman

Title: Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America
Author: Ari Berman
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication Date: August 4, 2015
Edition: Kindle (385 pages)
Category non-fiction

Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America by Ari Berman

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


As a frequent reader of Ari Berman's reporting, I was anxious to read Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America, and it did not disappoint. It provides a detailed history of voting discrimination in America, especially as it related to voting rights, before and after the enactment of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 and subsequent reauthorizations.

It is very easy to think that voting rights and other civil rights are no longer threatened in America because of civil rights legislation and enforcement, but you will have a greater understanding of these ongoing threats after reading this most excellent historical work. Though it is non-fiction, it reads like a novel as it chronicles events of import with respect to voting and civil rights, and, in many cases, the lack there of. This may go down in my reading history as one of the best and most informative books I have ever read.