Crisis in Black and White is a powerful and unsparing analysis of the Negro problem in America. It is one of the finest books on American society that has appeared in several years. The Negro problem is not something that can be separated from the main pattern of our style of life. If one began Mr. Silberman's book with such an easy assumption one finally puts it down convinced that to change the status of the Negro is to face the necessity of much deeper changes in the American way. Such changes, Mr. Silberman urges, are possible, but they require first that we face our problem honestly. His book is a model of just such honesty.