{"product_id":"charisma-and-the-fictions-of-erica-r-edwards-9780816675463","title":"Charisma and the Fictions of Black Leadership","description":"\u003cp\u003eSocial and political change is impossible in the absence of gifted male charismatic leadership--this is the fiction that shaped African American culture throughout the twentieth century. If we understand this, Erica R. Edwards tells us, we will better appreciate the dramatic variations within both the modern black freedom struggle and the black literary tradition.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBy considering leaders such as Marcus Garvey, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and Barack Obama as both historical personages and narrative inventions of contemporary American culture, Edwards brings to the study of black politics the tools of intertextual narrative analysis as well as deconstruction and close reading. Examining a number of literary restagings of black leadership in African American fiction by W. E. B. Du Bois, George Schuyler, Zora Neale Hurston, William Melvin Kelley, Paul Beatty, and Toni Morrison, Edwards demonstrates how African American literature has contested charisma as a structuring fiction of modern black politics. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThough recent scholarship has challenged top-down accounts of historical change, the presumption that history is made by gifted men continues to hold sway in American letters and life. This may be, Edwards shows us, because while charisma is a transformative historical phenomenon, it carries an even stronger seductive narrative power that obscures the people and methods that have created social and political shifts.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Erica R. Edwards\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0816675465\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780816675463\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of Minnesota Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 01\/24\/2012\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 288\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.70lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.30h x 5.40w x 0.70d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eReference and Research Bk News\u003c\/i\u003e 04\/01\/2012 pg. 186\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eChoice\u003c\/i\u003e 02\/01\/2013","brand":"Erica R. Edwards","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":43926488252671,"sku":"9780816675463","price":28.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/products\/img_47067aab-3755-4a1d-aac0-40af05f0aa66.jpg?v=1681083351","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/charisma-and-the-fictions-of-erica-r-edwards-9780816675463","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}