Harlem Renaissance

by Nathan Irvin Huggins, Arnold Rampersad (Foreword)

A finalist for the 1972 National Book Award, hailed by The New York Times Book Review as "brilliant" and "provocative," Nathan Huggins' Harlem Renaissance was a milestone in the study of African-American life and culture. Now this classic history is being reissued, with a new foreword by acclaimed biographer Arnold Rampersad.

As Rampersad notes, " Harlem Renaissance remains an indispensable guide to the facts and features, the puzzles and mysteries, of one of the most provocative episodes in African-American and American history." Indeed, Huggins offers a brilliant account of the creative explosion in Harlem during these pivotal years. Blending the fields of history, literature, music, psychology, and folklore, he illuminates the thought and writing of such key figures as Alain Locke, James Weldon Johnson, and W.E.B. DuBois and provides sharp-eyed analyses of the poetry of Claude McKay, Countee Cullen, and Langston Hughes. But the main objective for Huggins, throughout the book, is always to achieve a better understanding of America as a whole. As Huggins himself noted, he didn't want Harlem in the 1920s to be the focus of the book so much as a lens through which readers might see how this one moment in time sheds light on the American character and culture, not just in Harlem but across the nation. He
strives throughout to link the work of poets and novelists not only to artists working in other genres and media but also to economic, historical, and cultural forces in the culture at large.

This superb reissue of Harlem Renaissance brings to a new generation of readers one of the great works in African-American history and indeed a landmark work in the field of American Studies.

Genres: History, African American, Nonfiction, Art, Literature, American History, Research

343 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2001

About the author

Nathan Irvin Huggins was W. E. B. Du Bois Professor of History and of Afro-American Studies at Harvard University as well as director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research.

Reviews

[Ernie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perhaps the best of the books that condemn the Harlem Renaissance as a failure. Ironically, this book's extremely negative view of Claude McKay's novels (especially Banjo) inspired me to devote my entire senior year to researching McKay's life and works. One of the most perceptive critics of the Harlem Renaissance, Huggins' aesthetic standards unfortunately cause him to see the most innovative and interesting aspects of black modernist art as decadent flaws.

Read him for his amazing critical insights, not for his conclusions.

[Illiterate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Huggins is very good on: (i) Harlem being within American culture; and so (ii) its traditions often being white and/or invented.

[Melissa Voelker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting history of Harlem renaissance. Thorough summary of art and culture during the period.

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Huggins sets the major literary figures of the Harlem Renaissance in their artistic, social, and historical contexts and offers an analysis of this movement that is both sympathetic to its aims but critical of many of its products. Huggins obviously knows a great deal about these figures as well as the history of American literature and society, which all comes through in his well-written prose.

[Pamela · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s a 4.5 rounded up. I’m reading this book for a class on the Harlem Renaissance. It is the signature book that describes and showcases the era. I kept having to remind myself that the book came out the year before I was born. Some of the conclusions Huggins makes may be different or more nuanced in light of the 50 years that have elapsed since the book was published.

[katelyn ♡]

read for a class and i liked it quite a bit! I learned a lot and I definitely have some more reading to do. i reeeeeally wish nathan irvin huggins elaborated more on the ideas brought up in the epilogue tho :(

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Professor Huggins offers lots of information and analysis on the Harlem Renaissance, its history and origins, in an engaging, intelligent, and eminently readable style.

It's from the 1970s, but not at all old-fashioned. Huggins is an "Afro-American" himself, but I found his perspective quite objective and even sympathetic to characters and events that later revolutionary types despised and derided.

[Simon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant, filled with provocative insights. Huggins' discussion of the role of minstrelsy in American theatre seems definitive to me. The book is very much a product of its time, however (1971), and I am not sure that his essential conclusions about the importance of the Harlem Renaissance have gone unchallenged. It did, however, provide me with lists of new authors. Highly recommend.

[AndPeggy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book, but does not read like a history or overview to me. Instead the author spends a great deal of time examining the social theory and influences of the Harlem Renaissance and the people involved. Reads almost like a series of thesis on the time period, with the last part examining ministrel shows being particularly strong.

[Mee Ok · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would give it 5-stars but I was disappointed that it overlooked what was perhaps the core of The Harlem Renaissance: (homo)sexuality. In the words of Henry Louis Gates, the Harlem Renaissance was "as queer as it was black", but you'd never know it from this otherwise well crafted book.

[Steven · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book feels intent on being negative in order to give it a "niche" perspective. Unfortunately the intent and writing overwhelm the actual subject. Typical Ph.d syndrome writing.

[Kristin]

Used for school project

[Johorse · Rating 3 out of 5]

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