The Black Count: the real deal

This, my friends, is how they should teach history: with books like The Black Count by Tom Reiss.  

I was utterly enthralled, captivated throughout my read, learning new things, making new connections between historical events, understanding, I felt, revolutionary France like never before.  

And Alexandre Dumas, novelist, whom I read as a child and again as an adult, how did I not know these things about you? How did I not know your father, the child of a slave, was the first black general in  French history, and, according to Wikipedia, "remains the highest ranking man of color of all time in a continental European army." Since the late eighteenth century?!

Thank you, Tom Reiss!

And thank you, From Left to Write, the online blogger bookclub, through whom I received a free Advance Reader Edition.  So fantastic

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