About the Book:The first complete and balanced history of the Black Panther Party–powerful and provocative”Until The Shadow of the Panther there have been no serious book-length attempts to examine the Panthers’ history and to evaluate their significance. . . . A Notable Book of the Year.”–New York Times Book Review (front page)”A keenly observed, often brilliant, Panther-busting book. . . . Pearson nevertheless portrays the Panthers’ rise as an understandable reaction against . . . white chauvinism.”–Los Angeles Times Book Review”This book will awaken profound misgivings–about gun-barrel rhetoric, about armed rebellion, about the ambiguities of justice.”–The New Yorker”A bracing experience . . . Pearson has been able to present enough hard evidence to draw a chilling portrait of Murder Incorporated in revolutionary dress.”–New York Newsday”Pearson . . . set out to write a very different book about his boyhood hero [Huey Newton] but didn’t blink at the truth . . . honest and compelling judgment.”–Detroit News