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James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own
by Eddie S. Glaude Jr.
James Baldwin grew disillusioned by the failure of the civil rights movement to force America to confront its lies about race. What can we learn from his struggle in our own moment?
"Not everything is lost. Responsibility cannot be lost, it can only be abdicated. If one refuses abdication, one begins again." —James Baldwin
Begin Again is one of the great books on James Baldwin and a powerful reckoning with America's ongoing failure to confront the lies it tells itself about race. Just as in Baldwin's "after times," argues Eddie S. Glaude Jr., when white Americans met the civil rights movement's call for truth and justice with blind rage and the murders of movement leaders, so in our moment were the Obama presidency and the birth of Black Lives Matter answered with the ascendance of Trump and the violent resurgence of white nationalism.
In these brilliant and stirring pages, Glaude finds hope and guidance in Baldwin as he mixes biography—drawn partially from newly uncovered Baldwin interviews—with history, memoir, and poignant analysis of our current moment to reveal the painful cycle of Black resistance and white retrenchment. As Glaude bears witness to the difficult truth of racism's continued grip on the national soul, Begin Again is a searing exploration of the tangled web of race, trauma, and memory, and a powerful interrogation of what we must ask of ourselves in order to call forth a new America.
"Begin Again is a groundbreaking and informative guide to Baldwin and his era." —The Washington Post
"Even if you don't agree with Glaude's interpretations, you'll find yourself productively arguing with them. He parses, he pronounces, he cajoles. He spurs you to revisit Baldwin's work yourself." —The New York Times
"In the midst of an ugly Trump regime and a beautiful Baldwin revival, Eddie Glaude has plunged to the profound depths and [soared to the] sublime heights of Baldwin's prophetic challenge to our present-day crisis." —Cornel West, author of Democracy Matters and Race Matters
"Begin Again is ... a timeless and spellbinding conversation between two brilliant writers." —Edwidge Danticat, author of Brother, I'm Dying and Everything Inside
This information about Begin Again was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Eddie S. Glaude Jr. is the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor at Princeton University and author of Democracy in Black.
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