An American Dilemma, by Gunnar Myrdal et al. (1944)

An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy
by Gunnar Myrdal, with Richard Sterner and Arnold Rose.
(1944). 2 vols. New York: Harper & Row, 1969. (Pb)

Review from Patricia Albjerg Graham in The Harvard Guide to Influential Books:

I discovered Gunnar Myrdal's An American Dilemma some years after it was originally published. I read it while a graduate student in history of American education at Columbia University. As a resident of Manhattan's Upper West Side I was living for the first time in a racially mixed environment. I found two elements of Myrdal's book fascinating: the analysis of what he called "the Negro Problem" and the response of "modern democracy" to it, and the introduction of a new generation of black scholars and the legitimization of their research on black issues.

Review from Harold Howe II in The Harvard Guide to Influential Books:

For understanding the issue of race in the American experience, there is no book to equal this. It has influenced a generation of scholars and the Supreme Court of the United States, and through them it helped create the civil-rights movement of the twentieth century. Myrdal recognizes the moral aspects of the problem and weaves them together with the analysis of a social scientist to create a magnificent insight. Much of my time and effort have been spent on racial issues in education, both schools and colleges, and this book is the bedrock I return to on the subject. Myrdal's basic view is still relevant. "The American Negro problem is a problem in the heart of the American. It is there that the interracial tension has its focus. It is there that the decisive struggle goes on."

An American Dilemma was also #22 on the Modern Library's 100 Best Nonfiction list, and #50 on National Review's Non-Fiction 100 list.