Not surprisingly, as much as I'd like to confirm or refute this work, the jury still won't come in and remains out. You should read this book if you've thought deeply about the "why" of our race problem in America, our prison problem in America, or the psychology of gender. You really owe this one to your real-world educational and intellectual development, whether you agree with it, or like it, or not. It will challenge, frustrate, and in the end, inspire you to look deeper. Great achievement; makes you wonder what extraordinary things never surfaced from inside this man's mind.

A must-read from the 20th century.


soul on ice- 30 years later   November 17, 2000
6 out of 8 found this review helpful

You Must read this book! It is an important Historical (1968) Document of life in america. Eldridge Cleaver holds nothing back from the reader & makes no excuses. This book is raw, uncensored, and will make you squirm. It will make you re-think your beliefs about racism, crime, sex, incarceration & humanity. amy,CT,USA,28.


Wisdom by any other Name!   February 22, 2010
CommonSense (usa)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

This is an amazing book, and a must read. What is also amazing is how people focus on the fact that it was written by a professed rapist and chauvinist. These very same individuals who would dismiss this book on the basis of the author's shortcomings would have no problem reading about George Washington, Samuel Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, King David of the Bible, Henry the VIII, and many more that were known rapist, bigots, chauvinist, slavers, kidnappers, and serial murders without batting an eye. They celebrate these criminals and their crimes without shame. This book gives the reader a glimpse into the mind of someone who has gone through his own hell and gained some enlightenment and insight that a wise reader can glean. No one is calling Eldridge Cleaver a saint unlike the people mentioned above that some fools adore without question. Mr. Cleaver is wreckage, but among that wreckage there are gems of hope. He is not promoting rape or chauvinism, but is being more honest and open about how misguided he was in his life. It today's society a pathological liar who refuses to admit guilt is forgiven before a person who acknowledges his crimes. With shallowness being the new deep it is a wonder that people understand the difference between a Dictionary and an Encyclopedia. There are many people who are not mature enough to read this book or maybe damage themselves and cannot see beyond their own hypocrisy.


the real deal from an educated black man   November 12, 2001
L. Rephann (Brooklyn, New York United States)
12 out of 18 found this review helpful

racism is still alive and well in the USA, despite surface gains by some people of color. this book goes into a theory for black/white tensions: the primeval mitosis, when humanity split into male/female, black/white, etc. and our dichotimies became external rather than held within each human. eldridge has some very serious ideas about why our gender roles are lined up with "race," and how the Body and Mind have become province to certain ethnicities. to heal our world, all humans must become whole: Mind, Body merging instead of blacks being all Body "supermasculine menials" and whites being "omnipotentent administrators." eldridge's glance into inter-racial love are interesting, if not at times confusing since he fell in love with his own (white) lawyer. eldridge's writing is strong and his prose is evocative. i think the best essay in this book is the one on primeval motosis, where he lays out his theory on tensions between the races. but all of them are excellent, especially when cleaver examines the vietnam war and wars against colonionalism the world over and links colonial/liberation struggles to the struggle for equality in the US! deep stuff, seeing as how "liberation" has been "won" because all nations, no matter how squalid and repressed, have the honor of participating in capitalism (aka globalism). blacks and other oppressed people in the USA have also bought into the switcheroo. read cleaver and see that many of the issues happening in the late 60s have not been resolved.

another thing i often found myself thinking: for a man who was incarcerated, and before the advent of the internet, cleaver must have put in so much effort to get the political/social information he did. even prison can not hold the mind/thoughts of someone who will reach out despite constraints.


Best realistic inside look into the black male experience   July 29, 1999
5 out of 9 found this review helpful

This book was the best inside look at the black male experience since Ellison's "Invisible Man" Cleaver cuts no corners, spares not feelings, and takes no prisoners. The book should be required reading for every African-Americans studies program in America, and every African-American Literature course in America. Cleaver is an excellent writer that proves that you don't have a PhD. to be an intelligent, articulate, person. Cleaver has knowledge he gained from school of hard knocks and the school of life. Like Malcolm X, Cleaver had to fall in order to get up and become a man!!!!!