The Great Wells Of Democracy: The Meaning Of Race In American Life [Paperback]

Manning Marable (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 11, 2003

In his boldest and most accessible book to date, Manning Marable lays out a new way to think about the past and the future of race in America. Exploding traditional lines of left and right, Marable stakes out such controversial and seemingly incompatible positions as the re-enfranchisement of felons, state support for faith-based institutions, reparations for slavery that systematically inject capital into the black community, and a reconfiguration of racial identities that accounts for the increasingly multi-racial nature of our society. He exhorts us to construct a new political language and practical public policies to bridge the racial divide--so that we do no less than reinvent the democratic project called America.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Divided into three sections, "The American Dilemma," "The Retreat from Equality" and "Reconstructing Racial Politics," the latest from the author of Beyond Black and White and many other titles is nothing less than a working summary of America's history of race relations and a survey the current sociopolitical scene, from hip-hop to September 11. Marable, founding director of the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Columbia, is compellingly interested in class and economic issues as more than subsets of race politics. And he maintains a surprisingly uncynical belief in the possibilities of democracy. These rare facets, and a good balance of scholarship and observation, assure the book's interest.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

"To heal the effects of trauma our stories must be told and retold." Taken from the latest treatise on race and politics in America by distinguished scholar and activist Marable (political science, Columbia Univ.), this statement sums up the book perfectly. Manning dedicates a disproportionate amount of time to recounting and documenting the history of racism in America, presenting a huge arsenal of statistics on employment and housing discrimination, educational inequality, racist law-enforcement practices, ineffective electoral politics, and neoliberal public policies that perpetuate racial inequality. Most readers will have heard the arguments before and will become impatient with the endless sermon on how blacks have and continue to be mistreated. Less emphasis on what has been done to African Americans and more emphasis on what African Americans have done for themselves and what they continue to do to ensure equality in the future would have created a much more effective narrative. For those stories, see Robin Kelly's Freedom Dreams. Suitable for black studies collections.
Sherri Barnes, Univ. of California Lib., Santa Barbara
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Basic Civitas Books (November 11, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465043941
• ISBN-13: 978-0465043941
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #587,117 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must read book for college students..., September 28, 2010

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This review is from: The Great Wells Of Democracy: The Meaning Of Race In American Life (Paperback)

This book was required for my African American class at college, and I bought it on Amazon.com because it was in my budget. The book is great and makes you think a lot about racism, racial struggles, and the effects race has on all platforms of democracy. I saved about nine to ten bucks by purchasing it here.