The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo

by Tom Reiss

To remember a person is the most important thing in the novels of Alexandre Dumas. The worst sin anyone can commit is to forget.

This revolutionary age of racial emancipation introduced much of the world to modern ideas of human freedom—the idea that all men, regardless of religion or race, deserve equal rights, opportunities, respect—but it also spurred the backlash of modern racism and modern anti-Semitism, which fused older prejudices with the new political and scientific ideologies.

Dumas—the son of a marquis and of a slave—had the unique perspective of being from the highest and lowest ranks of society at once.