Unpredictable Past

Lawrence Levine is a major American historian, President-Elect of the Organization of American Historians, and author of one of the most significant books in both black history and cultural history, Black Culture and Black Consciousness (OUP/USA 1977).These fourteen essays, written over two decades, cover American history, historiography, aspects of black culture, and American popular culture (during the Great Depression). A number of them examine aspects of black culture that were dealt with from a different perspective in Black Culture and Black Consciousness. Some deal with such related topics as the transfer of African culture to America, Marcus Garvey as a black leader, the development of black culture in the 1920s, and therole of jazz in American culture. Several essays involve Levine's recent concern with American popular culture during the Great Depression of the 1930s, including such areas as film, radio, and photography. Altogether this is a collection of stimulating, original essays that continually offer fresh insightsinto the black experience and culture in general in America. The book should have appeal to college courses in black history, American culture, and American history from 1900 to 1945.

Lawrence W. Levin is Margaret Byrne Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley, and a recipient of the MacArthur Prize Fellowship. He is the author of numerous books, the most recent of which include Highbrow/Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America (1988) and Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom (Oxford, 1977), which won the Chicago Folklore Prize.