American Babylon : Race And The Struggle For Postwar Oakland - 03 edition

"[A]n original and complex explanation for the urban crisis that transformed Oakland, California, from 1945 to 1978. . . . By placing the history of Oakland and its African American community in a new theoretical framework that emphasizes suburban growth, tax revolts, and battles over land, jobs, and political power, Self has challenged historians to reconsider the way that they study postwar black urban communities."

--Albert S. Broussard, Journal of American History

"[M]eticulously researched. . . . [A] compelling, complex, and original account of black and, to a lesser extent, white community politics in metropolitan Oakland California from 1945 to 1978."

--Cynthia Horan, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science

"American Babylon traces the dialectic of suburbanization and black power in my hometown of Oakland, California. Encapsulating the postwar history of hundreds of mid-sized American cities, Robert Self's original and fascinating case study historicizes city-suburb racial segregation as a creation within living memory. We cannot heal or make sense of the nation we live in now without American Babylon."

--Nell Irvin Painter, Princeton University, author of Southern History across the Color Line

"American Babylon promises to be one of those rare works that redefines the field. Robert Self brilliantly weaves together histories that are usually told separately: political economy, labor, black community formation, suburbanization, and civil rights. His analysis of the relationship between 'black power' and 'white power' opens up a new way of thinking about race, economics, and politics in modern America."

--Thomas J. Sugrue, University of Pennsylvania, author of The Origins of the Urban Crisis

Princeton University Press Web Site, August, 2005

Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Introduction
PART I: URBAN AND SUBURBAN POLITICS AND THE CALIFORNIA DREAM, 1945-1964

1. Industrial Garden
2. Working Class
3. Tax Dollar

PART II: RACE, URBAN TRANSFORMATION, AND THE STRUGGLE AGAINST SEGREGATION, 1954-1966

4. Redistribution
5. Opportunity Politics

PART III: BLACK LIBERATION AND SUBURBAN REVOLT, 1964-1978

6. Black Power
7. White Noose
8. Babylon

Conclusion
Appendix: Population, Housing, and Taxes
Notes
Index