Joshua Bloom and Waldo Martin, “Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party” (University of California Press, 2013)

New Books in African American Studies · Apr 17, 2013 · 1h 10m

German military theorist Carl Von Clausewitz observed that many of the important variables in war exist in ‘clouds of great uncertainty’ which create disconnects and confusion that persist even after the fighting has ended. The conflict between the Black Panther Party and the United States government is in ways illustrative of this phenomenon–or ‘the fog of war’ as it has come to be called–and helps explain why the Party is so well known yet misunderstood. For many, the Black Panther Party exists in image fragments: bullet-pocked storefronts, raised fists, drawings of mutant-pig policemen…