Last of the Conquerors

{{Short description|1948 novel by William Gardner Smith}}

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Last of the Conquerors is the 1948 debut novel by African-American journalist and editor William Gardner Smith.Weik von Mossner, Alexa. "Last of the Conquerors". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 19 August 2009

[http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=26238, accessed 20 September 2015.]{{Cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/jan/07/featuresreviews.guardianreview25|title=The story behind Richard Wright's last novel|last=Campbell|first=James|date=2006-01-07|work=The Guardian|access-date=2017-10-12|language=en-GB|issn=0261-3077}}

The novel concerns the author's experience as an African-American GI serving in the racially segregated United States Army in US-occupied Germany after World War II. The protagonist, Hayes Dawkins, has an affair with Ilse, a white German woman. He and Ilse struggle against racist Army officers and policies to sustain a relationship that some white soldiers condemn (although there are also many friendly whites who help them).

Last of the Conquerors depicts post-Nazi Germany as more racially tolerant than the United States. While this depiction may or may not be accurate, Smith's novel is offering a critique of Marshall Plan rhetoric claiming that American society should be a model for the world, while African-Americans continued to suffer under the Jim Crow system at home and in the military (an inconsistency noticed by many other writers, American and German, at the time).