New Negro, Old Left

Examines why such a large percentage of African-American cultural leaders during the 1930s were allied directly or indirectly to the Soviet-led Communist Party, seen in popular imagination as a bastion of white connivance and black self-cancellation. Emphasizing the mutual influences between Communism and black literature, reveals a movement and party that promoted a spectrum of exchanges between black and white authors, genres, theories, and cultural institutions. Also traces the impact of that alliance on subsequent developments in US racial and radical cultures. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)