Book summary

Wolfe's two famous essays about race in America date from the late 1960s. In "Radical Chic" he takes his scalpel to a notorious party given by Leonard Bernstein in honor of the Black Panthers--an event which Wolfe immortalized as the ultimate in white condescension. "Mau-Mauing the Flak-Catchers" is about a confrontation between young black and Hispanic inner-city residents and the uptight Californians representing a bureaucratic "poverty program."

Media reviews

"Tom Wolfe has the great journalist's knack of finding large subjects in small places, but he can't resist reducing them to the scale of his own taste. In 'Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers', the Leonard Bernsteins' 'party' for the Panther 21 last Jan. 14 and the troubles of California antipoverty offices play variations on a serious theme, the dynamics of confrontation between oppressed peoples and well-intentioned privilege. But in each case Wolfe finally achieves complacent if elegant minification."