{"product_id":"the-blue-period-black-writing-in-the-early-cold-war-hardcover","title":"The Blue Period: Black Writing in the Early Cold War - Hardcover","description":"\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eJesse McCarthy\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAddresses the political and aesthetic evolution of African American literature and its authors during the Cold War, an era McCarthy calls \"the Blue Period.\"\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e In the years after World War II, to be a black writer was to face a stark predicament. The contest between the Soviet Union and the United States was a global one--an ideological battle that dominated almost every aspect of the cultural agenda. On the one hand was the Soviet Union, espousing revolutionary communism that promised egalitarianism while being hostile to conceptions of personal freedom. On the other hand was the United States, a country steeped in racial prejudice and the policies of Jim Crow. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Black writers of this time were equally alienated from the left and the right, Jesse McCarthy argues, and they channeled that alienation into remarkable experiments in literary form. Embracing racial affect and interiority, they forged an aesthetic resistance premised on fierce dissent from both US racial liberalism and Soviet communism. From the end of World War II to the rise of the Black Power movement in the 1960s, authors such as Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Paule Marshall defined a distinctive moment in American literary culture that McCarthy terms the Blue Period. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e In McCarthy's hands, this notion of the Blue Period provides a fresh critical framework that challenges long-held disciplinary and archival assumptions. Black writers in the early Cold War went underground, McCarthy argues, not to depoliticize or liberalize their work, but to make it more radical--keeping alive affective commitments for a future time.\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eJesse McCarthy\u003c\/b\u003e is assistant professor of English and African and African American studies at Harvard University. He is the editor of the Norton Library edition of W. E. B. Du Bois's \u003ci\u003eThe Souls of Black Folk \u003c\/i\u003eand the first volume of \u003ci\u003eMinor Notes\u003c\/i\u003e, an anthology of African American poetry. He is also the author of \u003ci\u003eWho Will Pay Reparations on My Soul? Essays\u003c\/i\u003e, winner of the 2022 Whiting Award for Non-Fiction, and the novel \u003ci\u003eThe Fugitivities\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 312\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.88 x 9 x 6 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eIllustrated:\u003c\/strong\u003e Yes\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e April 25, 2024\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Books by splitShops","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51750195003680,"sku":"9780226830377","price":178.2,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0974\/9764\/5344\/files\/aac836798269f810fc250ad1fe039bd3_aa4889bd-2786-4738-8202-6e93cc50d3f1.webp?v=1779945629","url":"https:\/\/ebocreations.com\/products\/the-blue-period-black-writing-in-the-early-cold-war-hardcover","provider":"The E-Book Oasis LLC","version":"1.0","type":"link"}