Books by David Levering Lewis
“It’s the history I recommend to friends and students seeking a readable introduction to Harlem’s rise as ‘the Negro Capital of the World.’ Lewis remains the least tediously detached writer on the Renaissance ever to have wielded a thick footnote. Only When Harlem Was in Vogue could describe Marcus Garvey’s ideology as a “farrago of Booker Washington and Mussolini,” and only there could this description seem well-founded.” Read more...
The best books on The Harlem Renaissance
William J. Maxwell, Literary Scholar
Interviews where books by David Levering Lewis were recommended
The best books on The Harlem Renaissance, recommended by William J. Maxwell
It was a golden age for American culture, a flourishing of Black literature, music and the arts that exploded in the 1910s and lasted through to the Great Depression. It was focused on Harlem, the area of New York City above Central Park, but its origins and its impact were much, much broader. William J. Maxwell, Professor of English and African American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis, recommends some of the best books on the Harlem Renaissance.
