This study will provide a critical summary of Breaking Bread: Insurgent Black Intellectual Life, by bell hooks and Cornel West. The book is composed of ten sections, including an introduction, six of which are dialogues and mutual interviews between the two authors. Two sections are brief biographies of each author by the other, and the final two sections are separate essays by the authors on black intellectual life.
The book is a fascinating cornucopia of dialogue and ideas and insights related to almost every aspect of black life and culture. Uniting the different sections of the book is the authors' goal of creating a more inclusive and loving black community through the expression of their "testimony." bell hooks presents a concept of testimony which guides this book:
Testimony is an integral part of the Black religious tradition. . . . The believer stands before the community of faith . . . to give hope. . . . Although testimony is . . . personal . . . it is also a story accessible to others in the community of faith. . . . The purpose of testimony is not only to strengthen an individual's faith but also to build a faith of the community" (1).
The dialogues which developed out of that "spirit of testimony" form the bulk of this book, and the authors are quite successful in achieving their goal. It would be simplistic to reduce the book to one goal, but the various goals are all connected closely the central theme of expanding and enlightening the black community. For example, the authors themselves advance the need for black men and women to engage in constructive, creative and mutually nurturing and challenging dialogue. In doing so, and in publishing their talks, they demonstrate that such dialogue can take place, and hope to encourage other black men and women to do the same. The authors also are successful in discussing subjects which are not commonly found discussed. hooks says that "What's exciting about these d...