CRB: Upon Further Review

Our friends a the Claremont Review of Books have just launched a new online feature, and they have made the first installment available to Power Line readers for a preview this morning. After much deliberation, the feature has been given the name Upon Further Review. The idea is to give the author of a CRB essay or review the opportunity to answer some questions and dig a little deeper into the subject of his or her piece.

In our look at the new issue of the CRB, We led off with Professor Diana Schaub’s provocative essay on the life of Malcolm X. Among other things, Professor Schaub argued that Malcolm X’s life typifies life in America and that he is in some ways a better embodiment of the American experience than Martin Luther King, Jr. In the first installment of Upon Further Review, the CRB interviews Professor Schaub about the piece.

Joining in the discussion is Peter C. Myers, professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire, a CRB regular and the author of books on Frederick Douglass and on John Locke. The result is a wide-ranging conversation on the history of blacks in America, and whether Malcolm X helped or harmed their cause. Professor Myers also includes a to-do list for Republicans seeking to enlist blacks in the cause. Here is the fist installment of Upon Further Review.

Professor Myers suggests that Malcolm X was a purveyor of alienation and that his radical stance inflamed racial tensions. Professor Schaub disagrees, citing Malcolm’s call for black Americans: not to stand for or against, but to stand up. That is, she argues, Malcolm “made his followers aware of the internal–the mental and spiritual–conditions of freedom.”

If you lean conservative and love to read about history, politics, economics, literature, culture and current events, the CRB may be the magazine for you. It is for me. Subscriptions are available here for $19.95 (including immediate online access). Thinking the pieces in each issue through to their first principles provides something of an education in itself. Upon Further Review means to deepen this education. Look for it quarterly at the Claremont Institute site after the publication of each issue.

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