audiobook Black Is a Country: Race and the Unfinished Struggle for Democracy by Nikhil Pal Singh in History

Review

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful. If You Love FreedomBy ChimmyBlack Is a Country by Nikhil Pal Singh is a no-nonsense history of black social thought in the twentieth century. Singh writes with both passion and rigor. "Struggles to claim universality for black people;" Singh argues; "have challenged not only particularism masquerading as a universalism; but a universalism distorted by its long monopolization against blacks" (45).Among the topics this book revisits with fresh insight are: the hard-hitting work of W.E.B. Du Bois; the various paths of black activism between the World Wars; the ambivalent project of Gunnar Myrdal at mid-century; and the connection as well as the divergence between the civil rights movement in the United States and decolonization struggles elsewhere.Seeking to undo "the mystifying imprecision of the word" (132); this book meditates on freedom. It offers a sobering reminder that today (and not just in developing countries) the access to the means for making oneself truly human continue to be narrow; or selective at best. The problems of inequity in African America are linked to the fate of other peoples for whom freedom continues to be scarce; due to race and class lines. Echoing Du Bois; Singh suggests that democracy remains in need of "wholesale reconstruction" (96).Here is another sentence to underline in Singh's book: "The specific danger is that many of the valuable insights derived from the ethics and politics of living and overcoming Jim Crow are now being squandered. More worrisome; the steady denial of the deep legacies of historical racism now contributes to the idea of an America restored to an identity with itself and with the destiny of all humanity" (57).In a certain way then; this book is also an affirmation. It is a record of the culture and practices that African Americans have cultivated; exercising the freedom to act ethically and to build a world. As Singh guides us through black social thought; we realize that the struggle against racism is relevant to anyone concerned with distributing not just the human image but also the material forms of access to the universal; among as many persons as possible (in their own terms) in as many time zones across our planet.Buy this book and read it more than once---along with Seeing Through Race by W.J.T. Mitchell.0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. This is a really great book to learn an extensive amount on black historyBy drawingstarsThis is a really great book to learn an extensive amount on black history. A majority of the stuff in the book was completely new to me and dealt with black history at a very high level. Definitely worth buying and keeping in your collection!!!30 of 36 people found the following review helpful. A Work of Great Relevance and Urgency...By A CustomerIn its simplest rendition; Black Is a Country is a work of hope that holds the potential to guide us out of our current state of racial dilemmas. Nikhil Singh points to the futility of relying on U.S. nationalist traditions in dismantling racism by illuminating the dialectic of race and nation; two concepts that have always been ineluctably intertwined; yet have largely remained fixed at opposite ends of the spectrum. Black intellectuals throughout the "long civil rights era" had articulated a vision of democracy that stretches beyond the parameters of American nationalism; and by doing so; they pointed to the failures of American universalism by shining light on the contradictions between American claims of universal democracy and the realities of systemic racial oppression. Recalling these bold visions and radical conceptions of democracy from the past; Singh ultimately suggests; will potentially lead us once again to "an effective antiracism" (14). In framing his argument; Singh re-envisions a "long civil rights era" that defies the "King-centric" and universalist version that remains engraved in the annals of American history. This new framework accomplishes four things. First; it suggests that civil rights made up only one part of a much broader and expansive struggle. As Martin Luther King; Jr. recognized toward the end of his life; "justice for black people will not flow into society merely from court decisions nor from the fountains of political oratory" (13). Second; rather than emphasizing the March on Washington or the passage of the Civil Rights Act-two landmark occurrences that reinscribed the notion of American universalism-as the apex of the movement; it centers the formation and expansion of the black public sphere as the movement's most phenomenal achievement. Third; as had already been implied; the long civil rights era embraced a host of intellectuals and artists who experimented with a range of politics with the ultimate vision of forging an independent black radicalism. Far from recognizing American nationalism as the suitable arena to achieving democracy; these black leaders (who have tragically become overshadowed by the figure of an idolized Martin Luther King; Jr.) looked beyond national borders and tapped the wells of their radical imaginations to locate an independent and transformative conception of democracy. Finally; it illuminates a long; unbroken line of black radicalism that stretched from old intellectual sages like W.E.B. Du Bois and C.L.R. James to young black nationalists like Stokely Carmichael and Amiri Baraka. This black radical tradition; although distracted by the repressive nature of McCarthyism and despite taking on different political guises; remained at heart one continuous struggle.Simply put; Black Is a Country is a work of great urgency that forces us to seriously rethink the dialectic of race and nation; a concept that had for the most part been taken for granted by historians. It is a book that should be widely read and reread.