An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy
New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, 1957.
Signed by Gunnar Myrdal on half title. lix, [1], 1483 pp. Bound in publisher's green cloth with gilt lettering. Later printing of the single volume edition first published in 1944. Near Fine in a Very Good+ dust jacket, lightly worn and soiled, price-clipped. Includes a laid-in TLS from Myrdal recommending a former secretary, dated March 23, 1977, on University of California, Irvine letterhead from their Program in Social Ecology, plus a response letter from the secretary.
This work, though somewhat obscure today, was the culminating achievement of Swedish economist and sociologist Gunnar Myrdal's life. It was commissioned by the Carnegie Corporation of New York to study American history and society in hopes of providing answers to what was then commonly called "the negro problem," a stark divide in an openly segregated sociological, political, and economic system. The book was widely read and cited, including in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision of 1954 that desegregated public schools.
Price: $2,000.00