Product Description

A New York Times bestseller, the groundbreaking authoritative history of the migration of African-Americans from the rural South to the urban North. A definitive book on American history, The Promised Land is also essential reading for educators and policymakers at both national and local levels.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #482408 in Books
• Published on: 1992-03-31
• Released on: 1992-03-31
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 7.94" h x .91" w x 5.22" l, .64 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 416 pages

From Publishers Weekly
From 1940 to 1970, some five million blacks migrated to the urban North. In a vivid document that spent 10 weeks on PW 's bestseller list and was a BOMC, History Book Club and QPB alternate, Lemann collects personal accounts and refutes the belief that all federal programs to aid the black poor failed.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Focusing on the larger post-1940 complement of the black South-to-North movement--the "Great Black Migration"--that created New York's Harlem and similar black quarters in every major northern city, Lemann traces the roots of Ameri ca's rotting ghettos. Moving between Clarksdale, Mississippi, Chicago, and the nation's capital with skill, Lemann (a contributing editor at The Atlantic ) particularizes and personalizes in life stories the forces that shifted five million blacks North after 1940 and then trapped most of them and their progeny in poverty. His essay in social causation and consequences rings as a manifesto of public policy for the 1990s with the clear theme that the nation can and must undo what its racism has done. It is highly recommended for all collections on contemporary America. Quality Paperback Book Club alternate.
- Thomas J. Davis, Univ. at Buffalo, N.Y.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
"A compelling and powerful book that should be read by anyone interested in the continuing history of racial oppression and conflict in the United States. Lemann successfully interweaves personal narratives of African-American migrants and their families with the discouraging story of politics and public policy in Chicago and Washington."-- David Brion Davis, Yale University
"A fascinating and deeply moving book, a masterpiece of social anthropology. Lemann's account of the political history of the War on Poverty ranks with the very best contemporary history."--David Herbert Donald, Harvard University