Get our Best Book Club Books of 2025 eBook!

Book Summary and Reviews of Represent by Michael Eric Dyson, Marc Favreau 

Represent by Michael Eric Dyson, Marc Favreau 

Represent

The Unfinished Fight for the Vote

by Michael Eric Dyson, Marc Favreau 

  • Critics' Consensus (19):
  • Published:
  • Sep 2024, 256 pages
  • Rate this book

About this book

Book Summary

Read about the electrifying and continuing fight for voting rights—and discover your place in it—in this dramatic exploration of American democracy, from renowned thought leader Michael Eric Dyson and widely celebrated author Marc Favreau.

One of the most important and least understood true stories of our nation, the fight for representation is an ongoing and epic quest to build the democracy sketched out in the Constitution but unfinished in the twenty-first century. With impeccable research and exhilarating prose, Represent tells the story of voting rights in the United States from the American Revolution up to the present day.

Each chapter takes on a new battle between the forces of people power and forces opposed to it. Readers will meet champions of freedom, including formerly enslaved revolutionaries, a Chinese American teenager, a Lakota Sioux activist, Black World War II veterans, a Mexican American student, and others who fought for their right to vote.

Drawing clear lines from then to now, Represent weaves this important struggle into a single American drama that will help readers understand our past, present, and future.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"This lively, accessible, and inspiring history deserves a wide readership. A concise, readable account of the struggle for equality, freedom, and democracy in the U.S." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"This relevant and inspiring account…shows how the past is not as far removed as one may think." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"In a direct style with riveting, often overlooked details, [Dyson and Favreau] trace the long and even violent fight for women's, Black, Latinx, Asian American, and Native American suffrage…[an] eye-opening narrative." —Booklist (starred review)

"Timely and important…highly recommended." —School Library Journal (starred review)

"A must read for every American, Dyson and Favreau introduce readers to some of the unsung heroes who have committed their lives to make democracy work for every citizen." ―The Root

"A vote is a kind of prayer for the world we desire for ourselves and our children.  Without it, I would not have a historic spot in the United States Senate and we the people would not have a democratic framework in which to fight for the things that matter.  At a time when that basic right is under assault by those committed to power at any cost, Michael Eric Dyson and Marc Favreau have written the indispensable book we need right now.  Represent is a monumental contribution to our country's perennial quest for justice and the right of every citizen to vote." —Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock

"Michael Eric Dyson and Marc Favreau have written a compelling book that is a balm for our democracy. In story after story, Represent narrates the epic quest for the vote by a stirring variety of communities—Black, Mexican American, Native American, and women of all ethnicities. This brilliant book will inspire us to embrace a precious right that each generation must fight hard to preserve." ―Reverend Al Sharpton

This information about Represent was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Information

Dr. Michael Eric Dyson is an award-winning and New York Times bestselling author of over twenty books, a widely celebrated professor, a prominent public intellectual, an ordained Baptist minister, and a noted political analyst. He is a two-time NAACP Image Award winner, and the winner of the American Book Award for Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster. His book The Black Presidency: Barack Obama and the Politics of Race in America was a Kirkus Prize finalist. He is the co-author of Unequal with Marc Favreau. He is also a highly sought after public speaker who is known to excite both secular and sacred audiences. A native of Detroit, Michigan, he currently lives in Nashville, Tennessee.

Marc Favreau is the director of editorial programs at the New Press, the acclaimed author of Crash,  Spies, and Attacked!, and coauthor (with Michael Eric Dyson) of Unequal: A Story of America, a finalist for the YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults. He lives in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts.

More Author Information

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more YA history, current affairs and religion...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

BookBrowse Book Club

  • Book Jacket
    The Girls of Good Fortune
    by Kristina McMorris
    Brave the Shanghai tunnels in this tale of love, identity, and resilience passed through generations.
  • Book Jacket
    Daughters of Shandong
    by Eve J. Chung
    Based on the author’s family story, comes an extraordinary novel about a mother and her daughters’ escape from Taiwan.
  • Book Jacket
    The Lilac People
    by Milo Todd
    For fans of All the Light We Cannot See, a poignant tale of a trans man’s survival in Nazi Germany and postwar Berlin.
  • Book Jacket
    Lies and Weddings
    by Kevin Kwan
    A forbidden affair erupts at a lavish Hawaiian wedding in this wild comedy from the author of Crazy Rich Asians.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    The Original Daughter
    by Jemimah Wei

    A dazzling debut by Jemimah Wei about ambition, sisterhood, and family bonds in turn-of-the-millennium Singapore.

  • Book Jacket

    Awake in the Floating City
    by Susanna Kwan

    A debut novel about an artist and a 130-year-old woman bound by love and memory in a future, flooded San Francisco.

  • Book Jacket

    Songs of Summer
    by Jane L. Rosen

    A young woman crashes a Fire Island wedding to find her birth mother—and gets more than she bargained for.

  • Book Jacket

    Erased
    by Anna Malaika Tubbs

    In Erased, Anna Malaika Tubbs recovers all that American patriarchy has tried to destroy.

Who Said...

The low brow and the high brow

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

T the V B the S

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.