Reviews
[a] compelling look at artists and writers who became part of the vanguard of the progressive politics and civil rights movement of the 1960s., Washington's excellent book contributes powerfully to a strand of scholarship that is transforming our understanding of post-World War II American intellectual and cultural history... Deeply researched, persuasively argued, and much-needed., Washington's brilliant, intimate and highly readable new book capstones an important era of post-Cold War scholarship of the legacy of American Communism and African American literature... no book in recent memory more boldly confronts and dismantles the political apparatus of literary commemoration., Superbly woven together... A must-read book for those who study and teach literature, women's studies, history, African American studies, American studies, and cultural studies., Mary Helen Washington's study is a wonderful combination of careful research, adept historicizing, and insightful close reading. Her book brings needed critical attention to understudied figures and helps readers rethink the careers of others whom they believe they already know., A wonderful combination of careful research, adept historicizing, and insightful close reading. Mary Helen Washington's book brings needed critical attention to understudied figures and helps readers rethink the careers of others whom they believe they already know., [A] compelling look at artists and writers who became part of the vanguard of the progressive politics and civil rights movement of the 1960s., Alice Childress, Lloyd Brown, Julian Mayfield, Frank London Brown... these ought to be household names in American letters and politics, as well as African American Studies. In a brilliant work of historical reconstruction and (re)vision, Mary Helen Washington not only rescues these critical artists/intellectuals from obscurity and restores them to history, but in doing so re-writes that history -- recasting the 1950s as a period of black radical critique, revolutionary fervor, political non-compliance, state repression and surveillance, and a flowering of black artistic imagination. This book will force us to rethink the "Dark Ages" as the other "Red Decade.", Why wouldn't a people who were 'buked, scorned, bled, and defamed by capitalism develop an incisive critique of it? The Cold War erased red politics from our reading of mid-century Black art. Dr. Washington brings it back with eloquence and dense documentation. If you believe in freedom, read this book., Well-researched, informative, illuminating... By challenging the standard Cold War narrative of Communist Party irrelevance and isolation, The Other Blacklist not only promotes radical African American cultural production in the 1950's, it also highlights the very real internal and external pressures faced by communists and their allies., Washington builds a strong and much-needed case against purely aesthetic interpretations of 1950s African American literature. Highly recommended., [Washington's] study is a wonderful combination of careful research, adept historicizing, and insightful close reading. Her book brings needed critical attention to understudied figures...and helps readers rethink the careers of others who they might believe they already know., As literary and cultural history, Washington's book offers a vast resource... Readers who are eager to place the postwar period in the context of 1930s and '40s historiography of the left as well as the period of black nationalism that followed in the 1960s will rejoice in these pages., Insightful, densely researched, and engaging... Washington resoundingly demonstrates the importance of the Black Popular Front to the postwar black literary tradition.
