During 1910 and 1970, over six million blacks left the oppressive South and moved to western and northern cities in the United States, an event identified as the Great Migration. The Heat of Other Suns is a powerful nonfiction book that illustrates this movement and introduces the world to one of the most important events in African American history. Wilkerson conveys a sense of authenticity as he not only articulates the tales of Ida Mae Brandon Gladney, George Swanson Starling, and Robert Joseph Pershing Foster, but also weaves together the stories of approximately 1,200 travelers who made a single decision that would go on to change the world. Wilkerson uses a variety of disciplines including sociology, psychology, and economics to document and praise the separate struggles but shared courage of three individuals and their families during the Great Migration. Likewise, the book's three main protagonists ultimately possess a common goal, fleeing their unjust circumstances in an attempt to seek the "warmth of other suns." For this reason they abandon the Jim Crow laws and the familiarity of their hometowns to escape to a better life. In the process, everyone takes on some level of risk in their decisions to rebel against the system. Ida, for example, decides to undertake a precarious journey while she is at the beginning of a clandestine pregnancy. Numerous unforeseeable events, including death, could have resulted from this ruling. All migrants shared a tacit agreement that the rewards would far outweigh the dangers involved. Another connection between these three characters is their family ties. They hold their elders in high regard and consider the effects of the decisions they make in... middle of paper... in the difficult time of the Great Migration. Students in particular can study this history and employ its principles in other courses. Traditional character analysis would prove ineffective with this nonfiction because the people in this book are real; they are our ancestors. Isabel Wilkerson used diverse scope and a wealth of research to convey a sense of reality that lifted the characters off the page. While she focused on three in particular, each served as an example of someone who left the South in different decades and with different inspirations. This involuntary mass migration has drastically changed and significantly improved society, our mentality and our economy. This profound and influential book reveals history as well as catapulting the reader into a world that was once very different from the one we know today..