Henry Louis Gates Jr. wanted to find a new way of looking at the full sweep of African-American history. As he writes: "I imagined a book with an abundance of images of the great and small events and significant individuals who shaped the heritage of the African-American people and the history of our nation."

The great strength of "Life Upon These Shores" is the "abundance of images" that editor Gates and his team have included - more than 700 photos, maps, illustrations, posters and cartoons, from a 1579 illustration of Juan Garrido, a black man who was part of Hernando Cortes' 1519 expedition to Mexico, to photos of President Barack Obama's inauguration.

Short essays cover both familiar topics - the Amistad, the Tuskegee Airmen, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr. - and lesser-known ones, including black cowboys and women activists of the 1970s. Gates and company also write about sports, literary, cultural and musical figures, including boxer Jack Johnson, singer-actor Paul Robeson, baseball pioneer Jackie Robinson and radio star Tom Joyner, to name a few.

Given the wide-ranging kind of survey book it is, anyone can find fault with it. Though it tries to point out African-American cultural highlights, there's not enough jazz in it for me, especially in the decades after Duke Ellington. Yet the book finds room for an essay on Quincy Jones, a significant producer but hardly the equal of Charlie Parker, John Coltrane or Miles Davis, and the popular but minor singer Billy Eckstine.

Nonetheless, "Life Upon These Shores" is a good starting point for a perusal of African-American history.