This book challenges the long-held assumption that African American literature aptly reflects black American social consciousness. Offering a novel sociological

Relating the blues to American social and literary history and to Afro-American expressive culture, Houston A. Baker, Jr., offers the basis for a broader study

This comprehensive analysis of the complex relationship of black political thought identifies which political ideologies are supported by blacks, then traces th

During and after the Harlem Renaissance, two intellectual forces—nationalism and Marxism—clashed and changed the future of African American writing. Current

For more than a decade, Americanists have been concerned with the problem of ideology, and have undertaken a broad reassessment of American literature and cultu