To Shape a New World

Essays on the Political Philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr.

By: Tommie Shelby, Brandon M. Terry

Narrated by: Kevin Kenerly, Priya Ayyar, Cary Hite, Robin Miles, Carrington MacDuffie

Martin Luther King Jr. may be America's most revered political figure, commemorated in statues, celebrations, and street names around the world. On the 50th anniversary of King's assassination, the man and his activism are as close to public consciousness as ever. But despite his stature, the significance of King's writings and political thought remains underappreciated.

In To Shape a New World, Tommie Shelby and Brandon Terry state that the marginalization of King's ideas reflects a romantic consensus history that renders the civil rights movement inherently conservative - an effort not at radical reform but at "living up to" enduring ideals laid down by the nation's founders. On this view, King marshaled lofty rhetoric to help redeem the ideas of universal (white) heroes, but produced little original thought. This failure to engage deeply and honestly with King's writings allows him to be conscripted into political projects he would not endorse, including the pernicious form of "color blindness" that insists, amid glaring race-based injustice, that racism has been overcome.

Cornel West, Danielle Allen, Martha Nussbaum, Robert Gooding-Williams, and other authors join Shelby and Terry in careful, critical engagement with King's understudied writings on labor and welfare rights, voting rights, racism, civil disobedience, nonviolence, economic inequality, poverty, love, just-war theory, virtue ethics, political theology, imperialism, nationalism, reparations, and social justice. In King's exciting and learned work, the authors find an array of compelling challenges to some of the most pressing political dilemmas of our present, and rethink the legacy of this towering figure.

©2018 Tommie Shelby and Brandon M. Terry (P)2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

A necessary work

A must read to being the essential teachings of Dr. King into relevance for activists and thinkers today.

Thoughtful study worthy of King

I enjoyed first rate scholarship. I enjoyed the honor and respect paid to King by subjecting him to careful critical examination. These essays reveal the continuing relevance of Kings thinking and practice to our contemporary setting. King is rescued from being either a saint or an outdated stereotype, he was a complex thinker and strategist in a dauntingly complex time. The essays amply repay multiple listening.

Beautifully written homage/treatise on the life & work of MLK, Jr.

Much of Dr. Kings scholarly work has been ignored and where mentioned, transmogrified into decontextualized platitudes. This book lays bay his contribution, not just to civil rights, but also to critical social theory. I highly recommend this book.