History of the Fez

Continuing with the recent trend of Ottoman history and culture (I'm biased, I know!), in this post we shall find out about the history of the Fez, a classical example of Ottoman culture. And one more thing... this post won't be a fashion post !

A simple Fez.

The Fez is, in essence, a hat. It's called fez in Turkish ( plural fezzes or fezes), or tarboosh in Arabic          

Mahmut II was the first Sultan to sport the Fez

 ( طربوش‎). They usually come in the shape of a red truncated cone or in the shape of a short cylinder made of kilim fabric.

Both usually have tassels.

The Fez was originally a Greek headgear that the Ottomans adopted in the early 19th Century as part of their efforts to modernize with their European counterparts.

There was thought to have been a myth regarding the choice of headgear.

The Ottomans rejected the Western 'European hats' (probably referring to top-hats and the sort) because it was not very 'user friendly' during the act of praying (I'd assume it kept falling off but feel free to speculate!)

The fez was made a part of the official Ottoman uniforms in the 1840's or so, after the Jannisaries (elite unit in the Ottoman army) were disbanded . Before, a turban was worn by Ottomans.

It's also used in North Africa (I believe that's where the name of the city 'Fez', in Morocco ,comes from ?) The use of the Fez in Anatolia died out with the Turkish Revolution.

The Fez in Greece and Turkey:

Let's focus on this geographic location.

A drawing of Turkish (L) and Greek (R) clothing

The fez-fesi in Greek-originate from the Greek islands and at first it was popular among the Greeks.

The Ottomans gradually abandoned turban and started using the fez.  Kemal Ataturk, the Turkish revolutionary,  condemned the fez as "the headcovering of Greeks" (this anti-Greek feeling was due to the recent Greco-Turkish war, as part of the Turkish War of Independence ) and banned it (this ban was part of a campaign by Ataturk to get rid of anything Ottoman ) in order to modernize Turkey.

Back to the origin, though the Fez is stated to have been Greek, we can precisely say that it was the Ionians in the Ionian and Aegaen sea (the Islanders of Greece) who made the hat.

 The Fez Nowadays:

It is safe to assume that the Fez is no longer banned in Turkey (much to the relief of Turkish TV shows!)

The Fez hat is also deeply significant in other parts of the world such as South Asia, where a large number of the followers and leaders of the Muslim League (The party that created Pakistan) adopted the Fez hat, primarily due to its links with the Ottomans. (The fall of the Ottomans saw a rise in Muslim nationalism and sympathy with the Turks, and created greater animosity towards the ruling British)

Nawabzada Nasarullah Khan, a Pakistani politician of the 90s is famous for his Fez.

The Fez has made an impact in popular culture as well, appearing in a wide range of television shows from Doctor Who to movies like Indiana Jones. It still remains an icon of Ottoman culture.

Who were the Ottomans ? A Brief Introduction

Yes, apparently I'm that much annoyed by the survey's results. So I thought it's time for a real and proper introduction to the Ottomans (and hopefully, I might slim down the margin!), so let's get started !

The Ottoman insignia (they had style , no ?)

The Ottomans were, in essence, Turks. The Turks are an ethnic group that originated from Central Asia. The Ottoman Empire, in particular, started in 1299. At the time, Anatolia (which is present-day Turkey, excluding the European part) was carved up into several minor (and often warring) independent states called 'Ghazi Emirates' (or Anadolu Beylikleri in Turkish). 

The founder Osman I and his Dream:

A map showing Osman I's conquests

One of these emirates was controlled by a man named Osman I (from which the word "Ottoman" is derived from), who controlled a region in western Anatolia. A popular myth about Osman was the famous "Osman's Dream" myth, in which he had dreamed of a tree which symbolized his future empire.

 According to his dream the tree, which was Osman's Empire, issued four rivers from its roots, the Tigris, the Euphrates, the Nile and the Danube.Additionally, the tree shaded four mountain ranges, the Caucasus, the Taurus, the Atlas and the Balkan ranges.

Osman set about conquering nearby areas of Anatolia and with this, the Ottomans have begun their first-minimal wave of expansion.

Expansion , Civil War and Fall of the Byzantine Empire:

The Ottomans continued to expand, non-stop, for another 200 years.

An Ottoman conquest of Thessaloniki from the Venetians secured Hellenic Thrace while a decisive battle against the Serbs at the Battle of Kosovo (1389) effectively ended Serbian influence and supremacy in the Balkan region.

The seemingly invincible Ottoman army dealt a severe blow to the Europeans at the Battle of Nicopolis in 1396 , which was known as the Last Major Crusade of the Middle Ages. The victory of the Ottomans over a pan-European army (comprising of Hungarian,Wallachian, French, Burgundian, German forces) marked the end of the Second Bulgarian Empire and lead to Bulgaria being absorbed into the Ottoman empire.

The Ottoman ,3 years before the capture of Constantinople

In 1402, the Ottomans, having now secured all former Byzantine lands around the capital Constantinople , were poised to besiege the city.

However, it was not meant to happen, yet.

At around the same time, Tamerlane's horde invaded the Ottoman territories, temporarily relieving the Byzantines.

The Ottomans suffered a humiliating defeat at the Battle of Ankara (1402) when the Sultan (Bayezid I) himself was captured (and later killed).

This led to a power-vacuum and a civil war in the Ottoman empire (imagine the relief of the Byzantines!) and it took more than a decade for the problem to be sorted when Mehmed I took power and emerged as Sultan in 1413.

During the civil war, the Balkan holdings of the Ottomans (including Thessaloniki and others) were lost. Mehmed I effectively reconquered them, Murad II (another Sultan) fended off a Hungarian-Polish alliance to drive the Ottomans out of Europe, defeating them at the Battle of Varna in 1444.

The painting shows the Fall of Constantinople

It was Murad's son, Mehmed II , who would be the greatest Ottoman leader yet. He had reorganized the state and military and proved his military ingenuity by conquering Constantinople in 1453 at the mere age of 21, effectively putting to an end, thousands of years of Roman power.

After this, the Ottomans relocated their capital to Constantinople and appropriately, Mehmed II now bears the title "محمد الفاتح‎" which means, Mehmed the Conqueror.

 Constantinople fell in 57 days. The reason was thought to have been because Mehmed had focused on strengthening the Ottoman Navy, which was to have an important role in preventing naval aid from reaching the Byzantines.

It was commonly believed that, 10 years after the siege, Mehmed II visited the site of the ruined city of Troy and boasted about how he had avenged the Trojans in their war against the Greeks.

Mehmed II also placed the title "Caesar" on himself, claiming to be descendant from the Romans (his mother was believed to have been a Byzantine princess). He had tried to conquer Rome, sending an invasion fleet to invade South Eastern Italy. This caused the Pope to panic and called for a crusade. Before reaching the invasion site, Mehmed died and the invasion failed.(In fact, he was the Sultan who had fought off Prince Vlad III the Impaler, otherwise popularly known as Count Dracula!)

Peak of Ottoman Power:

This map explains the extent of Ottoman Expansionism

It would be obvious what the Ottomans had achieved now. By capturing Constantinople, they've consolidated their role as being a Mediterranean power. Anatolia was finally conquered by Beyezid II in 1482. His successor, Selim I, conquered modern-day Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine and Egypt as well as securing Baghdad (temporarily) from the Safavids in the 1510s. After the conquest of Cairo, the Sultan took up the title "Caliph".

Suleiman the Magnificent 's reign followed, in which he expanded the Balkan frontier ; capturing Belgrade and most of Hungary as well as Rhodes. He had also annexed huge parts of Northern Africa (see Libya and Algeria), and had granted the Barbary pirate states of Tripolitania , Tunisia and Algeria, autonomy.

He had also expanded into the Persian Gulf region, turning the local states into Vassal states and maintaining an Ottoman naval presence there until the Portuguese expelled them in 1554. A siege on Vienna (Austria) was laid in 1529 but failed.

By the end of Suleiman's reign, the Ottoman Empire housed 15 million people.

The Ottomans, since they controlled major overland trade routes, had a monopoly over trade products in Europe. However, with the advent of the discovery of the new world and subsequent findings of raw materials and gold, this caused severe inflation in the Ottoman economy. The Ottomans retaliated against aggressive European expansionism , primarily in the form of the Portuguese and Spanish navies.

Decline:

The Ottoman Navy suffered their most humiliating defeat, beaten at the Battle of Lepanto against the Holy League (a confederation of Catholic States). Though, this had little tactical significance, this victory symbolized that the Ottoman Navy was not invincible. The Ottomans could be beaten.

As times changed, reliance on firearms grew more and cavalry importance became less. Though the Ottomans were slightly behind the arms race, the Ottomans replaced their secret weapon , the Sepahi cavalry, with an even more frightening corps that striked fear into the Europeans; the Jannisaries.

The Ottomans faced the onslaught of the Holy League once again, in the Balkan frontier. Fifteen (15) continuous years of war culminated in the Treaty of Karlowitz (1699) which lead to the Ottoman Empire to surrender Hungary permanently to the Holy League.

Battle of Lepanto painting

Besides a constant changing of hands in the city of Baghdad and Yerevan, very little happened on the eastern front with the Safavids.

As the 18th century arrived, the Ottomans gave more land to the Austrians as a result of war. Soon, Algeria and Egypt were independent in all but name (but came under the influence of France and UK respectively). The Ottomans had to face a new growing challenge - The Russian Empire. Sweden's ruler Charles XII, managed to convince the Ottoman Sultan to declare war on the Russians (in order to help the Swedes). The Ottomans were largely successful and ended in an Ottoman victory.

During the Tulip Era (1718–1730), named for Sultan Ahmed III's love of the tulip flower and its use to symbolize his peaceful reign, the Empire's policy towards Europe underwent a shift. The Empire began to improve the fortifications of its cities in the Balkan peninsula to act as a defence against European expansionism.

Cultural works, fine arts and architecture flourished, with more elaborate styles that were influenced by the Baroque and Rococo movements in Europe. A classic example is the Fountain of Ahmed III in front of the Topkapı Palace. The famous Flemish-French painter Jean-Baptiste van Mour visited the Ottoman Empire during the Tulip Era and crafted some of the most renowned works of art depicting scenes from daily life in the Ottoman society and the imperial court

After the Crimean War (fought in the Crimea region of Ukraine, and involving the Ottomans), the Ottomans were inevitably going to fall.

The spread of Nationalism, secessionism (particularly in the Balkans) and the Reform movement (ie, the Tanzimat era) led to the downfall of the Ottomans. The Ottomans were a multi-ethnic empire where differences were bound to be obvious ; the government had tried to impose Ottomanism, where all Ottoman subjects were viewed as equals (perhaps a response to the French Revolution as well ?).

The Empire is Dead. Long Live the Republic:

World War One was the killing blow. The Ottomans, having aligned with the Central Powers, faced a double frontier; one in the Caucuses against the Russians, and one in the Sinai frontier against the British (and briefly, a front in Gallipoli and in Iraq, both of which failed). The Russian theater was particularly a bloody one.

The Mesopotamian Theater

The Great Arab Revolt of 1916 (the brainchild of British negotiations with the Sharif of Mecca) was the turning point in the Middle Eastern theater. Jordan, Palestine, Iraq and Syria was lost by 1918. In 1919, under the Treaty of Sèvres, the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire was solidified. For the first time in 600 years, foreign soldiers of an enemy army occupied Constantinople in 1918.

The Turks were furious , guess why ?

The Turks were furious, their land was being carved up by foreign powers and there was one Turk who didn't stand for this. Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk was a later title), a soldier of the former Ottoman Army who served in Gallipoli, he had lead the Turkish War of Independence against the foreigners.

First, the revolutionary army went to war against the newly-founded Armenian state which culminated to the Treaty of Alexandropol (December 2, 1920) which nullified the state. Attention was turned to the Greeks and their land was won again.

The Greek campaign was launched because the western Allies, particularly British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, had promised Greece territorial gains at the expense of the Ottoman Empire. It ended with Greece giving up all territory gained during the war, returning to its pre-war borders, and engaging in a population exchange with the newly established state of Turkey under provisions in the Treaty of Lausanne.

The collective failure of the Greek military campaign against the Turkish revolutionaries, coupled with the expulsion of the French military from the region of Cilicia, forced the Allies to abandon the Treaty of Sèvres. Instead, they negotiated a new treaty at Lausanne. This new treaty recognised the independence of the Republic of Turkey and its sovereignty over East Thrace and Anatolia.

Painting showing the capture of Ismir

As one Turkish poet said  ;

The war was over. 
The Empire was dead.
The Republic lived on.

If the above article is unclear, I direct you to this colourful map!

Understood now ? :)

Survey: Do you know who the Ottomans are ?

Another month, another survey. As the title suggests, it's a fairly simple question. 82 participants were asked the question:

"Do you know who the Ottomans are?"

And the results are in :

An overwhelming majority!

 As you can see, 90.24 % of respondents (that is 74 people) answered yes while 9.76% of respondents (that is 8 people) answered no.

What is interesting is, that I had asked this question in two different areas. One was in a history forum and the other was in a local area. Surprisingly (and ironically), respondents here (in my local area) , a greater number of people have not heard of the Ottomans.  

The survey of the local area

 While it is good to see that the average person seems to know the Ottomans, I am , however, slightly disturbed by the fact that almost 40% of respondents didn't know who the Ottomans were (considering that they live in a Middle Eastern country that was a stone throw away from the old empire). 

I'm curious to know what my readers think of this gap ? What's the reason behind this ? 

A Glimple of Local Art in Bahrain

Continuing with the theme of Art & Culture Month (and while we're still in the Mid-East culture part), I decided it would be a fitting tribute to give a shout-out to my country. Here are just some of the local paintings:

1.Adhari:

Made by Amina Al Abbasi

2. Susan:

Made by Amina Al Abbasi

3. Unity:

Made by Amina Al Abbasi

4. Couple under Umbrella:

Made by Ashwathy Shyam kumar

5. Fashion:

Made by Ashwathy Shyam kumar

6. Gahwa (Coffee):

Made by Ebrahim Sharif

7. Manama:

Made by unknown artist (help ?)

8. Bahraini House:

Made by unknown artist (help ?)

9. Bahraini Woman:

Made by unknown artist (help ?)

10. Muharraq Harbour: 

Made by unknown artist (help ?)

11. Bahrain Dhow:

Made by Ella Prakash

 12. Flowers:

Made by Areej Rajab

13.Abstract Art:

Made by Areej Rajab

There are many more local paintings and I'd like to direct readers to this local website, Bahrain Artistic Frames Center, which hosts a heck of a lot of paintings.

I hope you've enjoyed this post. What culture would you like me to post about next ?

Osman Hamdi Bey : An Ottoman Artist

A self-portrait , made by Osman.

I've been 'introduced' to this great artist by a Turkish friend (Thanks Efendi ! You too, Bri!)

Kicking off Art & Culture month (which is till the 5th of March), let us start with perhaps, the best artist I know of, in the Ottoman World. Osman Hamdi Bey was born in 1842, in Constantinople.

In his lifetime, was an Ottoman statesman, intellectual, art expert and also a prominent and pioneering Turkish painter.

He was also an accomplished archaeologist, and is considered as the pioneer of the museum curator's profession in Turkey.

He was the founder of Istanbul Archaeology Museums and of İstanbul Academy of Fine Arts (Sanayi-i Nefise Mektebi in Turkish), known today as the Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts.

This post is dedicated in his memory (he died on the 24th of February, 1910) and legacy:

 1. The Tortoise Trainer:

 
2. The Arms Seller:

 3. Girl Reciting Qur'an:

 4.Girl with yellow ribbon (Sarı Kurdelalı Kız):

5. Satranç/Chess:

 

 6.İlahiyatçı/theologian.

7. Gezintide Kadınlar:

8. (unknown)

 

9.Vazo Yerleştiren Kız./Lady who fit the vase:

This link (though in Turkish) contains many more pictures.  

Freshen Up With Archaeology Friday (Post V)

Civil War Submarine Finally Revealed:

The Confederate submarine (Photo by Reuters)

For the first time since the U.S. Civil War, the Confederate vessel H.L. Hunley—the world's first submarine to sink an enemy ship—was revealed on January 12 (pictured) after 11 years of conservation work. 

Shown in a South Carolina conservation facility, the Hunley sank the U.S.S. Housatonic off Charleston in 1864. Within minutes the sub itself sank too-killing its eight-man crew and creating an enduring mystery.

Five years after the Hunley wreck's discovery in 1995, conservators raised the sub using a special steel truss that was removed only weeks ago.

"No one alive has ever seen the Hunley complete," said engineer John King on January 12 as a crane lifted the truss at Clemson University's Warren Lasch Conservation Center in North Charleston, Reuters reported on January 13. 

"We're going to see it today."

Explaining Mayan Deforestation and Drought:

A rather interesting article by NASA that deserves a mention here.

Sometime during the ninth century A.D., an apparently prosperous Mayan society collapsed within decades. Why? Could the collapse of the Mayan civilization be a warning to us today?

One possible explanation for the downfall is drought. Central America is naturally prone to drought, but one recent study suggests that Mayan activities may have deepened the dry conditions. In an effort to sustain one of the highest population densities in history, the Mayans transformed the land. They removed nearly all of the forest and replaced it with agricultural crops.

The top map shows how little native forest (dark green) remained at the end of the Mayan period around 950 AD. By cutting down the forest, the Mayans changed their local climate. When NASA scientist Ben Cook examined land use for the era in the Goddard Institute for Space Studies general circulation model, he found that the climate was warmer and drier during the rainy season (June, July, and August) than it would have been had natural forest remained in place.

Map courtesy of NASA.

 Though deforestation didn’t cause a drought, it amplified natural droughts when they occurred. The center and lower images illustrate the change. Places that are drier (brown) and warmer (red) than normal correspond to areas where the forest had been cleared.

How could cutting a forest have such a big impact? Plants interact with the atmosphere. Dark plants—such as dense tropical forest—absorb a lot of energy from the Sun. Lighter colored plants (crops) reflect some energy. When a forest is replaced by lighter colored plants, the land reflects more sunlight, which cools the atmosphere. Cool air sinks, while water vapor needs to rise and condense to create a rainstorm. Without warm, unstable air rising into the atmosphere, rainstorms became less common. The drying pattern is shown in the center image.

The lack of rain helped raise temperatures on land. When energy from the Sun reaches the ground, it either heats the ground or it causes water to evaporate from the soil or transpire from plants. With forests producing less moisture and croplands holding less water, droughts deepened as more and more of the Sun’s energy heated the ground, (lower image).

How permanent was the change? Cook compared climate conditions during the late Mayan era with conditions during the early colonial era (1500-1650), when land use was at a minimum and forests had re-grown over Central America. The warming and drying trend disappeared.

Today, much of the colonial-era forest is gone, but large swaths remain on the Yucatan Peninsula. This forest may help moderate drought. But if it were cut down, Central America might become warmer and drier again.

Why Were the Dinosaurs so Huge ?

My favourite article of the week and a MUST-READ , this article from Discovery explains a lot.

How did some dinosaurs reach such soaring heights -- up to 100 feet high in some cases? Efficient lungs and respiration, along with egg laying, might have given dinos a growth edge when compared to other animals, suggests new research.

The study also negates a popular theory that animals tended to become bigger over the course of their evolution.

While some dinosaurs grew ever larger over subsequent generations, not all did.

"We look at the early history of archosaurs, including some early dinosaurs," said Roger Benson who co-authored the study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

"We can see that some lineages obtained gigantic body sizes, but others remained small and a few showed evolutionary size reductions."

"Although mammal-like reptiles are small, and dinosaurs in general are big, by the end of our study period, this did not occur to be directed by evolutionary trends. Instead, large-bodied mammal-like reptiles became preferentially extinct, and archosaurs radiated to fill a wide range of body sizes, including giant."

-

Benson, a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Cambridge, explained that "pterosaurs, the flying reptiles, are a good example of a lineage that remained small during our study interval. There were also many small herbivores, like the dinosaur Heterodontosaurus, and small predators like the dinosaur Coelophysis.

Why were dinosaurs so huge ??

 Scan Unwraps Mummy's secrets:


News from Scotland, courtesy of the Scotsman:
 
An Edinburgh University team of radiologists and forensic pathologists have identified the remains as those of a 2,000-year-old Egyptian woman, aged 25-29, with a plate of metal, probably solid gold, in the shape of a flying scarab, placed on her skull.

Another metal disc has also been found on her stomach, and she is clutching a rolled scroll in her right hand against her thigh. The scroll is likely to be a funerary text, combining directions for mummification with guidance for the afterlife, and it could give the mummy’s lineage or name.

Why she died remains a mystery despite the sophisticated scanning techniques normally used to diagnose disease in live patients. The experts believe she is likely to have expired following a common infection, such as then untreatable pneumonia, rather than TB, or syphilis, which would typically have showed up in the bone structure.

The scan (image from The Scotsman)

There is no sign either of injury from broken bones, though the scan does reveal the holes cut in the small bones at the back of her nose by Egyptian embalmers to remove her brain.

Even her teeth appear to be in remarkably good condition, although there are some signs of disease, suggesting she may have suffered from toothache.

Jim Tate, head of conservation and analytical research at the National Museum of Scotland (NMS), said: “Apart from being dead, she was in good health.”

The mummy was brought back to Scotland in 1857 by Alexander Rhind, a 24-year-old Scottish Egyptologist, who discovered it in a tomb in the ancient city of Thebes, now known as Luxor. Meticulous about cataloguing only what he saw, he was critical of so-called “archaeologists” whom he claimed indulged in little more than looting by unwrapping mummies as it destroyed the carefully preserved corpses.

His find was shipped back to Scotland undisturbed and has been in the museum’s collections ever since.
Relatively late in historical terms – from about 10BC – the mummy was “a handsome specimen of the style of ornamenting externally, by means of inlaid or impressed emblems of gold and coloured vitreous composition”, Rhind wrote. But he left the contents untouched.

Ancient Mummy had Prostate Cancer!

Sticking to the Mummy theme, here is some news from Egypt.

A professor from American University in Cairo says discovery of prostate cancer in a 2,200-year-old mummy indicates the disease was caused by genetics, not environment.


The genetics-environment question is key to understanding cancer.

AUC professor Salima Ikram, a member of the team that studied the mummy in Portugal for two years, said Sunday the mummy was of a man who died in his forties.

She said this was the second oldest known case of prostate cancer.

"Living conditions in ancient times were very different; there were no pollutants or modified foods, which leads us to believe that the disease is not necessarily only linked to industrial factors," she said.

A statement from AUC says the oldest known case came from a 2,700 year-old skeleton of a king in Russia.

Recorded Voice of Otto Von Bismarck Released !

It's a great day for German-o-philes today!

Listen to Bismarck's voice

A wax cylinder recording of German statesman Otto von Bismarck has been released, the first time his voice has been heard for more than 100 years.

The recording was made in 1889 by a technician working for the inventor of the phonograph, Thomas Edison.

It has now been restored using digital technology by the Thomas Edison National Historical Park museum.
The Otto Von Bismarck Foundation in Germany has called the discovery "sensational".
The Foundation had believed the recordings to be lost.

The cylinder was among 17 found in 1957 in an unlabelled box at Edison's laboratory in the US state of New Jersey.

Bismarck is barely audible on the recordings but can be heard reciting extracts of poetry, songs, and giving words of advice to his son.

Intriguingly, at one point he also breaks into the first lines of the French national anthem, La Marseillaise.
The cylinders have also yielded songs and rhapsodies by German and Hungarian musicians, including what is thought to be the first ever recording of a work by Polish composer Frederyk Chopin.

Book Review: Martin Luther King - The Peaceful Warrior

I had initially read this book simply because my knowledge on the Civil Rights era has been largely minimal, but with this read, I have been somewhat inspired. What was ironic was that I got this book (unknowingly) on the same day as Black History Month !
So if you're one to celebrate this month, why not pick this book ? (Specially written for newbies!)

Published in 1968, a good book for beginners

Have you ever been curious about who Martin Luther King was but you were too frightened to read the extensive Wikipedia article ? Well, rest assured, this biography has been written for the most novice of novices!

This book is great for teens and young adults; it is around 100 pages (containing a transcript of the famous "I have a Dream" speech !) and the book is generally written for a complete novice (if you're a history buff and you know MLK properly already, then this isn't a book for you. But its a good book to give to kids  ). The book does not expect you to know anything beforehand (other than the discrimination that existed at the time).

The book starts with details of MLK's father's childhood and life and slowly transits to MLK. It is relatively simple to read it (you won't get lost in it) and the illustrations help brighten up the mood. It gives details (though not very deep) of MLK's childhood and education, from his time in "Negro neighborhoods" to being the valedictorian in his graduation class at college, and of his time as a pastor in Alabama during the Bus Boycott. Perhaps the most touching part was the description of his assassination. It shouldn't be a surprise that the book praises MLK countless times.

Overall, a good book for the classic newbie (or anyone wanting to know a basic knowledge of him), not so much for history buffs (but give it to a kid !) I recommend it for 12+

Rating: 3/5