{"product_id":"the-crisis-of-the-negro-intellectual-isbn-9781590171356","title":"The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual","description":"\u003cp\u003ePublished in 1967, as the early triumphs of the Civil Rights movement yielded to  increasing frustration and violence, \u003ci\u003eThe Crisis of the Negro Intellectual \u003c\/i\u003eelectrified  a generation of activists and intellectuals. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe product of a lifetime of struggle  and reflection, Cruse's book is a singular amalgam of cultural history, passionate  disputation, and deeply considered analysis of the relationship between American  blacks and American society.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Reviewing black intellectual life from the Harlem Renaissance  through the 1960s, Cruse discusses the legacy (and offers memorably acid-edged portraits)  of figures such as Paul Robeson, Lorraine Hansberry, and James Baldwin, arguing that  their work was marked by a failure to understand the specifically American character  of racism in the United States. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis supplies the background to Cruse's controversial  critique of both integrationism and black nationalism and to his claim that black  Americans will only assume a just place within American life when they develop their  own distinctive centers of cultural and economic influence. For Cruse's most important  accomplishment may well be his rejection of the clichés of the melting pot in favor  of a vision of Americanness as an arena of necessary and vital contention, an open  and ongoing struggle.\u003c\/p\u003e\"Harold Cruse wrote \u003ci\u003eThe Crisis of the Negro Intellectual \u003c\/i\u003efor the moment and for the future. He succeeded in both….Cruse’s book not only reflected the frustration, anger and confusion of its time, it also promised an explanation and a solution…an enduring document.\"\u003cbr\u003e— \u003ci\u003eTLS\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Eloquent, passionate, forceful—Harold Cruse has had an electrifying impact on an entire generation of African American intellectuals.\"\u003cbr\u003e— Gerald Horne\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eCrisis\u003c\/i\u003e dwarfed almost all other books of the period when it came to bringing together politics, art, and social movements related to or inspired by the Afro-American condition.\"\u003cbr\u003e— Stanley Crouch\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Cruse repositioned the interpretive axes of the study and conduct of black political debate. Where Malcolm X was the intellectual inspiration of Black Power and Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Turé) was its principal ideological architect, Cruse was without question its definitive critical interlocutor.\"\u003cbr\u003e— Adolph Reed, Jr., New School University\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"When all the manifestoes and polemics of the Sixties are forgotten, this book will survive as a monument of historical analysis—a notable contribution to the understanding of the American past, but more than that, a vindication of historical analsis as the best way, maybe the only way, of gaining a clear understanding of social issues.\"\u003cbr\u003e— Christopher Lasch, \u003ci\u003eNew York Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eHarold Cruse\u003c\/b\u003e (1916-2005) was born in Petersburg, Virginia, the son of a railway porter. He was raised from a young age in New York City, where he attended high school, after which he served with the Army in Europe during World War II. Cruse attended the City College of New York, although he did not graduate, and was a member of the Communist Party for several years. He also wrote a number of plays and, in the 1960s, was co-founder with LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka) of the Black Arts Theater and School in Harlem. After publishing \u003ci\u003eThe Crisis of the Negro Intellectual\u003c\/i\u003e in 1967, Cruse was invited to lecture at the University of Michigan, where he taught in the African-American studies program until his retirement as professor emeritus in the mid-1980s. Harold Cruse was also the author of \u003ci\u003eRebellion or Revolution?\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003ePlural But Equal: A Critical Study of Blacks and Minorities and America’s Plural Society\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe Essential Harold Cruse: A Reader.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eStanley Crouch\u003c\/b\u003e is a columnist, novelist, and essayist. Since 1987 he has served as an artistic consultant at Lincoln Center and is a co-founder of Jazz at Lincoln Center. He is the author of \u003ci\u003eNotes of a Hanging Judge\u003c\/i\u003e,\u003ci\u003e Don’t the Moon Look Lonesome\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe All-American Skin Game\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eAlways in Pursuit\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe Artificial White Man\u003c\/i\u003e.","brand":"NYRB Classics","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304403652837,"sku":"NP9781590171356","price":27.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781590171356.jpg?v=1767738875","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/the-crisis-of-the-negro-intellectual-isbn-9781590171356","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}