Black against Empire, Waldo E. Martin, Jr.
Black against Empire, Waldo E. Martin, Jr.
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Black against Empire
The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party

Author: Waldo E. Martin, Jr., Joshua Bloom

Narrator: Ron Butler

Unabridged: 18 hr 11 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 04/30/2016

Synopsis

In Oakland, California, in 1966, community college students Bobby Seale and Huey Newton armed themselves, began patrolling the police, and promised to prevent police brutality. Unlike the Civil Rights Movement that called for full citizenship rights for blacks within the U.S., the Black Panther Party rejected the legitimacy of the U.S. government and positioned itself as part of a global struggle against American imperialism. In the face of intense repression, the Party flourished, becoming the center of a revolutionary movement with powerful allies around the world.

Black against Empire is the first comprehensive overview and analysis of the history and politics of the Black Panther Party. The authors analyze key political questions, such as why so many young black people across the country risked their lives for the revolution, why the Party grew most rapidly during the height of repression, and why allies abandoned the Party at its peak of influence. Bold, engrossing, and richly detailed, this book cuts through the mythology and obfuscation, revealing the political dynamics that drove the explosive growth of this revolutionary movement, and its disastrous unraveling.

About Waldo E. Martin, Jr.

Waldo E. Martin, Jr., is a professor of history at the University of California, Berkeley. His scholarly and teaching interests include modern American history and culture with an emphasis on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; his principal areas of research and writing are African American intellectual and cultural history. He is the author of No Coward Soldiers: Black Cultural Politics in Postwar America and The Mind of Frederick Douglass. Waldo has published numerous articles and lectured widely on Frederick Douglass and on modern African American cultural and intellectual history.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Mh on June 26, 2013

I have read a lot about the Black Panthers including most of the memoirs (Seize the Time, Taste of Power, This Side of Glory, Soul on Ice, Assata, Panther Baby) and several good books on narrower pieces of the history (Living for the City, Survival Pending Revolution, Murder of Fred Hampton). So I w......more

Goodreads review by Kevin on November 03, 2021

The Good: --Very accessible; the 500 pages of blow-by-blow historical details with intermittent theory flew by. Given the easy flow, audiobook format also works well. The Conclusion (final pages) provides an excellent summary. --Framework for understanding history: what were the historical factors th......more

Goodreads review by Alexis on February 11, 2023

the way this book took me 13 months to finish… anyways…. If you’re looking for a textbook on the black panther party, this is it. with all the details you could ever desire — but be prepared for that as it is hefty.......more

Goodreads review by Dan on August 24, 2024

The new standard history of the Black Panther Party. It's still crucial to read direct from those involved, Huey Newton, Assata Shakur, Safiya Bukhari, and others, but more than any other single volume Black Against Empire lays out the entire history of the BPP and its political development. Compreh......more

Goodreads review by Sara on January 26, 2015

Fascinating and extremely detailed history of the Black Panther Party that shows how the global context of the 1960s was a large part of why such a radical organisation could become so successful. The book also explains why a movement like this is unlikely to emerge in the US anytime soon.......more

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