In Search of Critical Social Theory in the Interests of Black Folk

This wonderful collection of essays is no less than a biography of and urgent call for critical theoretical explorations in the study of race in the last third of the twentieth century and these early moments of the New Millennium. Outlaw’s essays are well argued, informative, and, often, poignant. Here put together for the first time, these essays will no doubt stand among the classic exemplars of American critical reflection of its ongoing contradictions both of and in its ideals and its reality. — Lewis R. Gordon, Professor of Philosophy and Africana Studies, University of Connecticut

This collection of essays written over two decades by one of our most prominent Black American philosophers offers a wealth of insight into the problems, as well as the rewards, of developing a critical theory that truly takes account of race while at the same time not neglecting the need for a new socioeconomic vision. Dr. Outlaw’s great familiarity with American history, including especially those parts of it concerning “Black Folk” that the standard textbooks still neglect, in combination with his clear-headed capacity for argumentation and his attractive willingness to be autobiographical and self-critical in the book’s Preface and Postscript, makes for a read that is both informative and enjoyable. — William McBride, Department of Philosophy, Purdue University