Class Notes

Posing as Politics and Other Thoughts on the American Scene

Adolph Reed Jr.

paperback

$16.95

Hailed by Publishers Weekly for its “forceful” and “bracing opinions on race and politics,” Class Notes is critic Adolph Reed, Jr’s latest blast of clear thinking on matters of race, class, and other American dilemmas. The book begins with a consideration of the theoretical and practical strategies of the U.S. left over the last three decades: Reed argues against the solipsistic approaches of cultural or identity politics, and in favor of class-based political interpretation and action.

Class Notes moves on to tackle race relations, ethnic studies, family values, welfare reform, the so-called underclass, and black public intellectuals in essays called “head-spinning” and “brilliantly executed” by David Levering Lewis.

Adolph Reed, Jr. has earned a national reputation for his controversial evaluations of American politics. These essays illustrate why people like Katha Pollitt consider Reed “the smartest person of any race, class, or gender writing on race, class, and gender.”

Adolph Reed, Jr. is a professor of political science at New School University. He is the editor of Race, Politics, and Culture and With Justice for All, and author of The Jesse Jackson Phenomenon, W. E. B. DuBois and American Political Thought, and Stirrings in the Jug.