A Critical Reader

Cornel West: A Critical Reader is a political act; it is a book engaged in textual and existential combat, for it honors and recognizes the complexity, critical subjectivity, humanity, intellectual productivity, and fecundity of this prominent Black scholar. This comprehensive text offers a systematic and thematic approach to West's philosophical work. It moves the reader through his distinctive form of prophetic pragmatism, his historicist and improvisational philosophy of religion, his socialist, democratic, and truncated Marxist political philosophy, and his reflections on a range of cultural issues. Regardless of the critical lens through which West's work is approached, all of the contributors honor his work and bring interpretive insight to his writings. Contributors include such scholars as Hilary Putnam, James Cone, Iris Young, Lewis Gordon, Lucius Outlaw, Howard McGary, Charles Mills, John Pittman, among others. This volume is a testament to West's astonishing intellectual depth, impact, versatility, and complexity.