An American Dilemma
book by Gunnar Myrdal
An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy is a 1944 study of race relations authored by Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdal and funded by Carnegie Corporation of New York. The foundation chose Myrdal because it thought that as a non-American, he could offer a relatively unbiased opinion. Myrdal's volume, at nearly 1,500 pages, painstakingly detailed what he saw as obstacles to full participation in American society that Black Americans faced as of the 1940s. American political scientist, diplomat, and author, Ralph Bunche—who was the first African American to receive a Nobel Prize—served as Gunnar Myrdal's main researcher and writer at the start of the project in the fall of 1938.
It sold over 100,000 copies and went through 25 printings before going into its second edition in 1965. It was enormously influential in how racial issues were viewed in the United States, and it was cited in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case "in general". The book was generally optimistic in its outlook on the future of race relations in America, taking the view that democracy would triumph over racism. In many ways, it laid the groundwork for future policies of racial integration and affirmative action.
Analysis
Myrdal believed he saw a vicious cycle in which Whites oppressed Blacks, leading to poor standards of education, health, morality, etc.
The public source identifies “An American Dilemma” as book by Gunnar Myrdal. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around American, Dilemma and book.
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Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4749762. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1944, 1938 and 1965.
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This entry incorporates text from “An American Dilemma” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.