Keeping the faith is a slogan from the civil rights movement, rarely used nowadays, when cynics clamor: Faith in what?… [Civil Wars resonates] with a powerful faith in the necessity of change. Jordan, who portrays herself as a fighter, struggles not only with the shadowy difficulties of being an intelligent, gifted black woman living in the 20th century but also with specific movements for change by nations, by a people, by the powerless in this century. Her fight is neither a lonely nor a lone one, but it often seems futile. Hence, that faith.

One of Civil Wars's predominant themes is the issue of self-determination—for an individual, say, a woman alone minding her own business, or a nation, say, Angola…. Essentially Jordan develops a personal version of self-determination, culminating in the finely wrought title essay. But she covers a lot of ground before she gets there...