Forging Identity

An urban sociologist befriends a visionary Detroit craftsman, artist, and inventor. Over the course of the next several years Paul Draus records how Carlos Nielbock's life experiences act as a lens that refracts the key challenges facing the city of Detroit and presents the city's redevelopment as an evolving high-stakes drama. Combining sociological context and theory, Draus chronicles Nielbock's mixed-race upbringing in postwar Germany, his journey to find his Black father in 1980s Detroit, his struggles with racial and cultural adversity, and his ambitious artistic vision for Detroit's future. Direct observations, interviews, and historical research on Detroit's ascendance, decline, and resurgence underpin Nielbock's story. The book explores race and identity, craftsmanship and capitalism, and criminal justice and incarceration.