An American Dilemma 1

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Black Studies Sociology AN AMERICAN DILEMMA: VOLUME I The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy Gunnar Myrdal With a new introduction by Sissela Bok In this landmark effort to understand African American people in the New World, Gunnar Myrdal provides deep inslght into the contradlctions of American democracy as well as a study of a people within a people. The title of the book, An American Dilemma, refers to the morál contradiction of a nation torn between allegiance to its highest ideals and awareness of the base realities of racial discrimination. The touchstone of this classic is the jarring discrepancy between the American creed of respect for the inalienable rights to freedom, justice, and opportunity for all and the pervasive violations of the dignity of blacks. The appendices are a gold mine of Information, theoiy, and methodology. Indeed, two of the appendices were issued as a separate work given their importance for systematic theoiy in social research. The new introduction... Tovább

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Black Studies Sociology AN AMERICAN DILEMMA: VOLUME I The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy Gunnar Myrdal With a new introduction by Sissela Bok In this landmark effort to understand African American people in the New World, Gunnar Myrdal provides deep inslght into the contradlctions of American democracy as well as a study of a people within a people. The title of the book, An American Dilemma, refers to the morál contradiction of a nation torn between allegiance to its highest ideals and awareness of the base realities of racial discrimination. The touchstone of this classic is the jarring discrepancy between the American creed of respect for the inalienable rights to freedom, justice, and opportunity for all and the pervasive violations of the dignity of blacks. The appendices are a gold mine of Information, theoiy, and methodology. Indeed, two of the appendices were issued as a separate work given their importance for systematic theoiy in social research. The new introduction by Sissela Bok offers a remarkably intimate yet rigorously objective appraisal of Myrdal-a social scientist who wanted to see hlmself as an analytic intellectual, yet had an unbending desire to bring about change. An American Dilemma is testimonial to the man as well as the ideas he espoused. When it first appeared An American Dilemma was called "the most penetrating and important book on contemporaiy American civilization" by Róbert S. Lynd; "One of the best political commentaries on American life that has ever been written" in The American Political Science Review; and a book with "a novelty and a courage seldom found in American discussions either of our totál society or of the part which the Negro plays in it" in The American Sociological Review. It is a foundation work for aU those concerned with the history and current status of race relations in the United States. About the Authors Gunnar Myrdal served as Swedish minister of trade and commerce, came to the United States as a Rockefeller Fellow, and wrote An American Dilemma at the invitation of the Carnegie Corporation. He returned to his homeland where he was, until his death, professor at the Institute of International Economic Relations at Stockholm University. Along with his wife Alva, he is considered a chief architect of the Swedish welfare state. Sissela Bok, MyrdaFs daughter, is Distinguished Fellow at the Center for Popuiation and Development Studies at Harvard University. She is author of, among other major writings, Alva Myrdal A Daughter's Memoir and Lying: Morál Chotce in Public and Priváté Life. Vissza