Begin Again

Begin Again

James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Today

Summary

*THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER*

'A simply wonderful book' PHILIPPE SANDS

'Begin Again is that rare thing: an instant classic' PANKAJ MISHRA

'Incredibly moving and stirring' DIANA EVANS

America is at a crossroads.

Drawing insight and inspiration from Baldwin's writings, Glaude suggests we can find hope and guidance through an era of shattered promises and white retrenchment. Seamlessly combining biography with history, memoir and trenchant analysis of our moment, Begin Again bears witness to the difficult truth of race in America. It is at once a searing exploration that lays bare the tangled web of race, trauma and memory, and a powerful interrogation of what we all must ask of ourselves in order to call forth a more just future.

'An essayistic marvel . . . deeply personal and yet immensely readable' SARA COLLINS, GUARDIAN

'An urgent, deeply interesting book' RACHEL COOKE, OBSERVER


Winner of the Stowe Prize 2021
Shortlisted for the British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding 2021

Reviews

  • I loved Eddie Glaude's Begin Again. James Baldwin is a man for our moment: in a time of Black Lives Matter we've come to think about our past, our colonial history, enslavement, matters of race and identity. The beauty of this book is not just that it's deeply personal, but that it's also extraordinarily scholarly . . . You're left with an understanding of the extraordinary modernity, relevance and the immense power of James Baldwin. It's a simply wonderful book
    Philippe Sands

About the author

Eddie S. Glaude Jr.

Eddie S. Glaude Jr. is the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor and chair of the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University. Glaude is the author of number books, including Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul. He hails from Moss Point, Mississippi, a small town on gulf coast, and is a graduate of Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia.
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