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“Joseph tells the story of each man’s identity…making clear that we can never fully understand one without the other."
— Time
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“Weaves [their] stories fluidly and with vivid detail, helping to strip away the high gloss of mythology.”
— Wall Street Journal
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“It is a fascinating story, full of subtle twists and turns."
— Washington Post
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“In the year of Black Lives Matter, this comparative biography of two of the great figures in the struggle for racial equality in the US stands out.”
— Financial Times (London)
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“The images of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. may have fallen prey to cliché in our time, but Joseph brings them back to life, showing that they had more in common than is generally believed.”
— New York Times Book Review
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“The various narrative strands cohere nicely. An authoritative dual biography from a leading scholar of African American history.”
— Kirkus Reviews
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“A landmark…Joseph deploys his supreme talents as a biographer and movement historian to interweave the world-shattering lives of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.”
— Ibram X. Kendi, New York Times bestselling author
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“Provides a nuanced analysis of these figures’ political positions in addition to unfolding the narratives of their personal lives. Well-written and compelling.”
— Henry Louis Gates Jr., professor, Harvard University, and New York Times bestselling author
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Enchanting.
— New York Times
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Joseph, a prolific historian of twentieth-century African-American politics, an indefatigable public commentator, and arguably the leading chronicler of the Black Power movement, sheds light in The Sword and the Shield on the complex intellectual and strategic dynamics beneath the publicly fractious relationship between Martin and Malcolm.
— New York Review of Books
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Mr. Joseph, a history professor at the University of Texas at Austin, weaves [Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X's] stories fluidly and with vivid detail, helping to strip away the high gloss of mythology.
— Wall Street Journal
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It is a fascinating story, full of subtle twists and turns.
— Washington Post
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A brilliant revisionist study of the lives of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. Effectively challenging the conventional dichotomy between the two men, it shows, instead, how their paths became increasingly convergent, coming to represent ‘overlapping and intersecting strains of revolutionary black activism.’
— The Guardian
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In this brilliantly braided biography, Peniel E. Joseph tells the story of each man’s identity and how their ideas shaped America, making clear that we can never fully understand one without the other.
— TIME
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In the year of Black Lives Matter, this comparative biography of two of the great figures in the struggle for racial equality in the US stands out.
— Financial Times
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Joseph's fresh and perceptive dual biography may rekindle political unity in a time of increasingly granular identity politics, sensationalism, and fear.
— Booklist
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As the author delineates the philosophies and tactics of each man, he compares and contrasts them on nearly every page, making the various narrative strands cohere nicely. An authoritative dual biography from a leading scholar of African American history.
— Kirkus
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The Sword and the Shield is a landmark. It is what happens when one America's greatest historians of African America shines the same light on two of African America's greatest historical figures. Peniel Joseph deploys his supreme talents as a biographer and movement historian to interweave the world-shattering lives of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.
— Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to Be an Antiracist
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Arguing against facile juxtapositions of the political philosophies of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, Peniel Joseph has written a powerful and persuasive re-examination of these iconic figures, tracing the evolution of both men's activism. The Sword and the Shield provides a nuanced analysis of these figures' political positions in addition to unfolding the narratives of their personal lives. Well-written and compelling, this important new book brilliantly explores the commonalities between the political goals of Malcolm and Martin.
— Henry Louis Gates Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor, Harvard University
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In this brilliant, timely, and eloquently written dual biography, Peniel E. Joseph, a leading scholar of the Civil Rights Movement and Black Power era, not only demonstrates his command over Malcolm X's and Martin Luther King Jr.'s activism and thought, but also his penetrating understanding of the black freedom struggle and the times and events that inevitably shaped his subjects. A profound and important book, The Sword and the Shield will shape how future generations interpret Malcolm's and King's monumental contributions to American culture, politics, and democracy.
— Pero G. Dagbovie, author of Reclaiming the Black Past: The Use and Misuse of African American History in the Twenty-First Century
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Peniel Joseph is an omnivore historian with a gift for synthesizing fact and ideas into a vivid, accessible package. In The Sword and the Shield, he has reconciled two dissonant icons in a satisfying, intimate blend of narrative and insight.
— Diane McWhorter, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution
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Peniel Joseph has written the civil rights history for our time. He explains how partisanship has distorted the legacy of a movement that promoted the citizenship and dignity of all Americans. Joseph recounts how the iconic civil rights leaders worked in tandem to unleash the common potential of American democracy, and how we must all do the same today. This is a deep book that will move readers to action.
— Jeremi Suri, author of The Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America's Highest Office