Review
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[A] groundbreaking piece of work. ...The result is not just a biography, but also a history of Muslims in
America and a sweeping account of one man's transformation... It will be difficult for anyone to better this book. ... a
work of art, a feast that combines genres skillfully: biography, true-crime, political commentary. It gives us Malcolm X
in full gallop. (Wil Haygood Washington Post)
[L]ucid, hugely researched and surely definitive...an extraordinary story. (Sunday Times)
[A]n incredibly detailed account of Malcolm's life (and an investigation of his murder) and it is, of course, completely
riveting....it is inevitably much more than a biography of one man... Marable is intensely and ly sympathetic.
(Geoff Dyer New Yorker)
In the pantheon of black American protest figures only Martin Luther King occupies a more exalted position, but it is
Malcolm X whose legend has the greater street credibility and aura of cool...Now, almost a half century [after his
assassination], Malcolm has finally received the biography that his unique role in black culture demands...A meticulous,
comprehensive, and fair-minded portrait. (Andrew Anthony Observer)
Professor Manning Marable's Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention is encyclopaedic in its approach. The endnotes and
bibliography indicate the staggering breadth and depth of scholarship underpinning this volume....Undoubtedly it will
stand as a last lecture on the subject by one of America's most distinguished historians. (Wilbert Rideau Financial
Times)
[A] wealth of detail, some of it new, some of it old stories confirmed...At the end of it all, Malcolm X remains Malcolm
X, for good or ill, one of the most fascinating historical figures of the 20th Century...a labour of love...a courageous
endeavour. (Hugh Muir Guardian)
Malcolm's short life (he was slain at 39) makes a fascinating story...Mr Marable has scoured contemporary press
clippings in America, Europe and Africa...and benefitted...from the recent release to the public of hundreds of
Malcolm's letters, photographs and texts of speeches. (The Economist)
Marable gives us all the raw material for a harshly critical appraisal... Marable's is very far from the first biography
of Malcolm, but it is undoubtedly the most penetrating and thoroughly researched. It clearly surpasses the best previous
effort, Bruce Perry's 1991 study (Stephen Howe The Independent)
By the end of the 1960s, Malcolm's disciples had elevated him to what Manning Marable, in this weighty biography, calls
'secular sainthood'; in death, his image was quickly refashioned to 'embody the very ideal of blackness for an entire
generation'... But Marable... resists the temptation of hagiography and fills in the gaps left by previous books. Where
the autobiography, carefully organised by the NOI-sceptic Haley, presents an idealised vision of a man's growth as a
thinker, Marable gives us Malcolm in all his self-contradiction and self-doubt... By refusing to pin him down, he offers
glimpses of the human being behind the legend. (Yo Zushi New Statesman)
Striking... Marable is intensely sympathetic but always conscious of the contradictions of his subject...the fulfilment
of a life's work (Geoff Dyer, Books of the Year Prospect)
About the Author
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Manning Marable was Professor of History and Political Science at Columbia University and director of the
Institute for Research in African-American Studies. He was the founding director of the Center for Contemporary Black
History, established in 2002 and the Institute for Research in African-American Studies, where he served from 1993 to
2003. He died as the hardback of Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention was published. The book was a Finalist for the
National Book Award 2011.