In White Guilt: How Blacks & Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era (HarperCollins; May 2, 2006; $24.95), thoughtful and provocative social critic Shelby Steele ups the ante with a concise, potentially incendiary exploration of the ways in which the last half-century of race relations has not only failed to abolish racial injustice and achieve equality, but has also spawned a moral void created by white guilt. In White Guilt, Steele calls for alternatives to this moral relativism, which he feels extends beyond race relations into all parts of American life. A timely polemic, the book is also a personal essay, drawing on Steele’s own experiences, from childhood to the present, as he has lived through the profound shift in our nation’s attitude toward race.