Measuring the Harlem Renaissance

"Measuring the Harlem Renaissance takes Harlem Renaissance studies in a valuable new direction, offering a reading of the metaphorical meaning of the New Negro movement and Black Modernism through the way in which not only the U.S. state recorded and determined racial identity, but, more important, how New Negro intellectuals articulated blackness and African American identity during the interwar, modernist period."—Gary Holcomb, author of Claude McKay, Code Name Sasha: Queer Black Marxism and the Harlem Renaissance

"In this fascinating book, Soto takes a new and startling approach to understanding the racial divides and communities that informed the literature of the Harlem Renaissance: he peers at the subject through the lens of the US census. . . . This deft study demonstrates what can be learned about literature (assuming the use of accessible language) from nontraditional tools—including game theory, geostatistics, and urban planning data. Highly recommended."—Choice

"Soto's book examines the historical power of census data to put African Americans on the map, literally and culturally . . . skillfully crafted."—American Literature