To Shape a New World: Essays on the Political Philosophy of Martin Luther King Jr.

Shelby, Tommie; Terry, Brandon M

ISBN 10: 1982557184 ISBN 13: 9781982557188

Publisher: Blackstone Publishing, 2018

Synopsis

Martin Luther King Jr. may be America's most revered political figure, commemorated in statues, celebrations, and street names around the world. On the fiftieth anniversary of King's assassination, the man and his activism are as close to public consciousness as ever. But despite his stature, the significance of King's writings and political thought remains underappreciated.

In To Shape a New World, Tommie Shelby and Brandon Terry write that the marginalization of King's ideas reflects a romantic, consensus history that renders the civil rights movement inherently conservativean effort not at radical reform but at ""living up to"" enduring ideals laid down by the nation's founders. On this view, King marshaled lofty rhetoric to help redeem the ideas of universal (white) heroes, but produced little original thought. This failure to engage deeply and honestly with King's writings allows him to be conscripted into political projects he would not endorse, including the pernicious form of ""color blindness"" that insists, amid glaring race-based injustice, that racism has been overcome.

Cornel West, Danielle Allen, Martha Nussbaum, Robert Gooding-Williams, and other authors join Shelby and Terry in careful, critical engagement with King's understudied writings on labor and welfare rights, voting rights, racism, civil disobedience, nonviolence, economic inequality, poverty, love, just-war theory, virtue ethics, political theology, imperialism, nationalism, reparations, and social justice. In King's exciting and learned work, the authors find an array of compelling challenges to some of the most pressing political dilemmas of our present, and rethink the legacy of this towering figure.

About this title

About the Author

Tommie Shelby is Caldwell Titcomb Professor of African and African American studies and of philosophy at Harvard University.

Review

To Shape a New World firmly situates Dr. King in the canon of American political thought.

-- "Eddie S. Glaude, Princeton University"

This work demonstrates...the continued and vital importance of [King's] thinking.

-- "Publishers Weekly"

A compelling work of philosophy, all the more so because it treats King seriously without inoculating him from the kind of critique important to both his theory and practice.

-- "Los Angeles Review of Books"

About this edition

• Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 1982557184
• ISBN 13: 9781982557188
• Binding: MP3 CD
• Number of pages: 1