Product Description

The now-classic memoir that shocked, outraged, and ultimately changed the way America looked at the civil rights movement and the black experience.

By turns shocking and lyrical, unblinking and raw, the searingly honest memoirs of Eldridge Cleaver are a testament to his unique place in American history.  Cleaver writes in Soul on Ice, "I'm perfectly aware that I'm in prison, that I'm a Negro, that I've been a rapist, and that I have a Higher Uneducation." What Cleaver shows us, on the pages of this now classic autobiography, is how much he was a man.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #165346 in Books
• Published on: 1999-01-12
• Released on: 1999-01-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Review
"A collection of essays straight out of Dante's Inferno.  The hell is there, and its name is America...as with Malcolm X, Cleaver's book is a spiritual autobiography.  An odyssey of a soul in search of itself, groping toward a personal humanism which will give meaning to life...the book is important...the book is extraordinary."
--Shane Stevens, The Progressive

"A remarkable book...beautifully written...Eldridge Cleaver makes you twist and flinch...he throws light on the dark areas that we wish he would leave alone."
--The Nation

"Brilliant and revealing."
--The New York Times Book Review

"All the essays [in Soul on Ice] deal with racial hurt, racial struggle, and racial pride...Eldridge Cleaver is a promising and powerful writer, an intelligent and turbulent and passionate and eloquent man."  
--Robert Coles, The Atlantic Monthly -- Review

Review
"A collection of essays straight out of Dante's Inferno.  The hell is there, and its name is America...as with Malcolm X, Cleaver's book is a spiritual autobiography.  An odyssey of a soul in search of itself, groping toward a personal humanism which will give meaning to life...the book is important...the book is extraordinary."
--Shane Stevens, The Progressive

"A remarkable book...beautifully written...Eldridge Cleaver makes you twist and flinch...he throws light on the dark areas that we wish he would leave alone."
--The Nation

"Brilliant and revealing."
--The New York Times Book Review

"All the essays [in Soul on Ice] deal with racial hurt, racial struggle, and racial pride...Eldridge Cleaver is a promising and powerful writer, an intelligent and turbulent and passionate and eloquent man."  
--Robert Coles, The Atlantic Monthly

From the Publisher
The searingly honest memoirs of the man who shocked, outraged and ultimately changed the way America looked at the civil rights movement remain today as a testament to the man's intelligence, insightfulness, and place in American history.

Customer Reviews

About half of this book is brilliant and the other half . . .
This is still one of the most important books of its era. It is very enlightening on such topics as racism suffered by Blacks in America, particulary Black males. If you want to know about the injustices that Black people have suffered around the 1960s, then you must read this book. But Cleaver's attempt to justify rape as a "revolutionary" act causes him to lose credibilty and also causes his cause to lose credibilty. This book would have been more powerful if Cleaver would have accepted responsibility for his crime, realizing rape cannot and never will be justifified.

Lost for words
After reading this book I believe trying to articulate in writing "what my opinion" is would be doing it an injustice. The man is brilliant and has influenced me to search for more knowledge and wisdom. Thanks Mr. Cleaver!

Sad, Revolutionary, and Incindiary at the same time,
Mr. Cleaver wrote a semiautobiography about how society sets itself up along racial and gender lines. Raping women is reprehensible and evil and it doesn't help solve the racial/gender problem. It excabates it. Challenging the racist/sexist society by making alliances with people whom he considered to be his enemies will solve most of the problem. He should have shown love for his fellow man/woman. Didn't Jesus tell people to love your enemies, not hating and violating them? Later on in life, his views have changed for the better.