| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 106.4

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to the AHR online. About 179 words from this article are provided below; about 532 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the American Historical Association, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time. AHA members can go to the AHA individual membership section to locate their member numbers.
If you are not a member of the American Historical Association, you can:: • Join the AHA and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the American Historical Review.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the American Historical Review (104.3-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the American Historical Review.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 106.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

John David Smith. Black Judas: William Hannibal Thomas and The American Negro. Athens: University of Georgia Press. 2000. Pp. xxvi, 386. $34.95.

Rightly frustrated by mainstream America's long-term attraction to harmful racial stereotypes, contemporary historians of the black experience have been reluctant to engage in research that might serve to validate negative views. While fully warranted, scholarly counterproposals that celebrate subcultural values and lifestyles have done little to enhance understanding of black America's ideological diversity and have obscured the workings of its complex internal class structure. Over time, this sort of selective historical amnesia has the potential to produce a dangerously skewed, overly self-conscious racial narrative dominated by longsuffering strivers and courageous "race men." Here, of necessity, the discordant voices of black nay-sayers are muted to highlight an assumed communal consensus. Political correctness is well served, but objectivity suffers and new stereotypes threaten to replace the old. John David Smith's meticulously researched intellectual biography of William Hannibal Thomas provides a useful antidote to any such romanticization of the African-American past. . . .

There are about 532 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.