"The Artificial White Man proves the rightness of Tom Wolfe's observation that Stanley Crouch is "the jazz virtuoso of the American essay." This time out, Crouch focuses his attention on issues surrounding the often misdirected American hunger for "authenticity." Though the essays range in topic from segregation in contemporary fiction to the racial politics of filmmaker Quentin Tarantino, they are informed by a singular concern: our increasing difficulty in discerning the real from the counterfeit, the posture from the pose. In contemporary life."--BOOK JACKET.