The Cambridge Companion to Malcolm X

Any librarian with thoughts of purchasing this little volume ought to check it out first. The contents are rather deceptive. You expect to find lots of hardcore politics in it but very few explicitly political chapters have been included on this intensely political man. You will look in vain for “obvious” headings like “Malcolm X's political strategy” or “Malcolm X and the civil rights movement”. Other possibles might be “Malcolm X and the political uses of violence” or “Malcolm X and separatism”: again, nothing. Instead the authors have spread him over a much broader canvas. He emerges as an icon,...