One by One from the Inside Out: Essays and Reviews on Race and Responsibility in America

Loury, a prominent black neoconservative, is at his best in this collection as a critic, ably confronting authors such as Cornel West (``sloganeering''), Andrew Hacker (``conspiracy theory'') and Derrick Bell (``opinion in the guise of a morality tale.'') His more substantive essays make a few worthwhile, if not new, points: blacks should avoid one-note politics, and they too often embrace victimhood. Though Loury shows concern for the black poor, his vague solution of self-help--``religious, civic, and voluntary efforts of all sorts''--is sloganeering that should be fleshed out by reportage and analysis. In an epilogue Loury recounts--somewhat gingerly, given his professorial emphasis on personal morality--his ``born again'' spiritual journey, which rescued him from his own descent into drug and alcohol dependence. He now teaches economics at Boston University. (May)