The Shadow of the Panther: Huey Newton and the Price of Black Power in America

The first complete and balanced history of the Black Panther Party—powerful and provocative.

"Until The Shadow of the Panther there have been no serious book-length attempts to examine the Panthers’ history and to evaluate their significance… . A Notable Book of the Year."—New York Times Book Review (front page)

"A keenly observed, often brilliant, Panther-busting book… . Pearson nevertheless portrays the Panthers’ rise as an understandable reaction against … white chauvinism."—Los Angeles Times Book Review

"This book will awaken profound misgivings—about gun-barrel rhetoric, about armed rebellion, about the ambiguities of justice."—The New Yorker "A bracing experience … Pearson has been able to present enough hard evidence to draw a chilling portrait of Murder Incorporated in revolutionary dress."—New York Newsday

"Pearson … set out to write a very different book about his boyhood hero [Huey Newton] but didn’t blink at the truth … honest and compelling judgment."—Detroit News