The style throughout [Soul on Ice] is pop Leftism, a mixture of sex and revolution characteristic of the New Left around the world…. Horst Krueger describes this combination as it appears in West Germany: "the era of Sex and Socialism. Eros is on the Left and beautiful is our youthful rebellion. Make love and carry the banner of the Vietcong high." Cleaver adds to this a brashly violent note and a sure literary talent….

A Black Muslim who renounced Elijah Muhammed's teachings to join Malcolm X, Cleaver pronounces the white world doomed. Differentiating good white people from bad, however, he sees young white radicals joining Negroes in building a Socialism in the United States that is similar to "third world" Marxism.

More interesting is Cleaver's obsession with white women: "It intensified my frustrations to know that I was indoctrinated to see the white woman as more beautiful and...