No other story in the Bible has fired the imaginations of African Americans quite like that of Exodus. Its tale of suffering and the journey to redemption offered hope and a sense of possibility to people facing seemingly insurmountable evil.
Exodus! shows how this biblical story inspired a pragmatic tradition of racial advocacy among African Americans in the early nineteenth century—a tradition based not on race but on a moral politics of respectability. E… More >>
Exodus!: Religion, Race, and Nation in Early Nineteenth-Century Black America
Eddie Glaude’s book is a lucid examination of the connection between the Exodus myth and Afro-American politics. Its subject and critical approach are unique, and its insights into the relationship between religion and politics in 19th century black America are priceless. In limpid, concise prose–unadorned with the jargon that bogs down so many academic books–Mr. Glaude provides us with a new lens through which to view the origins of black political life and, by extension, to understand the full-fledged nationalist movements that were to take hold in the 20th century. I thoroughly enjoyed this book; it is a ground-breaking work written with the confidence of a Baldwin, with the trenchant vision of an Isaiah Berlin, and with a spirited energy that evokes the eponymous Bob Marley song.
Rating: 5 / 5