Small Acts: Thoughts on the Politics of Black Cultures

Small Acts charts the emergence of a distinctive cultural sensibility that accomplishes the difficult task of being simultaneously both black and English. Straddling the field of popular cultural forms, Paul Gilroy shows how the African diaspora born from slavery has given rise to a web of intimate social relationships in which African-American, Caribbean and now black English elements combine. Discussions of Spike Lee and Frank Bruno, record sleeves, photographs, film and literature from Beloved to Yardie are used to show how new and exciting possibilities have arisen from the transnational flows that create cultural links between the global African diaspora. Small Acts is a seminal work by an important young critic that changes the terms on which black culture will be understood and argued about.