NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A powerful study of how to bear witness in a moment when America is being called to do the same.”—Time 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? Named one of the best books of the year by Time, The Washington Post, and the Chicago … of the year by Time, The Washington Post, and the Chicago Tribune • Winner of the Stowe Prize • Shortlisted for the Goddard Riverside Stephan Russo Book Prize for Social Justice
“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.
more
In this powerful and elegant book on James Baldwin, Eddie Glaude weaves together a biography, a meditation, a literary analysis, and a moral essay on America. Like Baldwin’s own essays and books, it is at times both loving and angry, challenging and uplifting, and always beautiful. Both Baldwin and this book speak directly to today.
In this searing, provocative, and ultimately hopeful book, Eddie Glaude, Jr., takes us on a fascinating journey through the mind and heart of James Baldwin. But a parallel odyssey through Glaude’s own formidable mind and generous heart unfolds as well—an odyssey that tells us much about the way we live now and how we might come to live if we could, to borrow a phrase of Lincoln’s, think anew and act anew. One need not agree with everything in these pages to learn much from them, and for Americans seeking to understand our past, our present, and the possible futures before us, Begin Again challenges, illuminates, and points us toward, if not a more perfect union, at least a more just one.
Begin Again is an unparalleled masterpiece of social criticism. Glaude thinks alongside America’s finest essayist, matching the master’s firepower, brilliance, courage, and sensitivity at every turn. He pushes, prods and disrobes history, forcing us to face uncomfortable truths and insisting upon our better inheritances. Glaude’s stunningly crafted prose — incisive, vulnerable, and beautiful — is as breathtaking as his brilliance. This book is precisely the witness we need for our treacherous times.
In the marrow of Eddie Glaude’s Begin Again is a rugged literary miracle. In evocative prose, Glaude showed me how we might use the unexceptional yet brutal nightmare of Trumpism to not simply better understand the work and life of James Baldwin, but how that discovery must also lead us as people, not simply as a nation, to ‘begin again’ and walk collectively toward actual liberation.
In the midst of an ugly Trump regime and a beautiful Baldwin revival, Eddie Glaude has plunged to the profound depths and sublime heights of Baldwin’s prophetic challenge to our present-day crisis. This book is, undoubtedly, the best treatment we have of Baldwin’s genius and relevance. Glaude’s masterpiece puts a smile on Baldwin’s face from the grave even as Baldwin weeps for us in this grim moment! With subtle brilliance and heartfelt tears, Glaude breaks bread with Baldwin in order to give us courage and hope!
Eddie Glaude is such a terrific writer. In Begin Again, as he wrestles with James Baldwin’s work and fraught relationship to the United States, Glaude’s work is urgent, pained, and strangely hopeful. He is issuing a call to reckoning: not just with the dishonesty of America’s founding promises, but with the tolls that its intrinsic racism has taken on the artists and thinkers who have come before. Glaude reminds readers of the inescapability of struggle and of the responsibility of consciousness, making explicit how our history underpins our current political moment. It’s a great book.
How often, amid the ongoing violence and division of our current chapter of American history, have I been made to recall not only the piercing brilliance of James Baldwin, but also his discomfiting prescience? ‘An old world is dying,’ he wrote in No Name in the Street, ‘and a new one, kicking in the belly of its mother, time, announces that it is ready to be born.’ The magic of Begin Again is that it allows us to ponder Baldwin both in his perilous era and in our own. Remarkable, and remarkably relevant.
Begin Again is a magnificent book filled with the type of passion, lyricism, and fire that James Baldwin commands and deserves. Eddie Glaude Jr. takes us on a unique and illuminating journey through Baldwin’s life and writings by both physically and philosophically following in his footsteps. In this phenomenal work, we are treated to a timeless and spellbinding conversation between two brilliant writers, thinkers, and active witnesses, addressing issues — past, present, and future — that are necessary, urgent, and vital for our survival.
Author Eddie S Glaude Jr eloquently describes his respect for James Baldwin throughout the pages of this book. In it, he reminds readers that Baldwin “always believed we could be better than what we are.” He also reminds us that Baldwin had to fight for that insight. Baldwin was not a man who was afraid. He was someone who ran toward the trouble because he knew that facing our fears was the only possible path to salvation. “If you’re scared to death, you walk toward it.” Author Glaude does well to remind us readers that Badlwin’s words still ring true today.
One of the best books I’ve read in the last ten years.
I had been a long time fan of James Baldwin. This book removed a fair amount of the luster his image held for me. This book exposes him not just for the sadness I knew he harbored but also for a dishonesty I never considered. As Gaude tells the story Baldwin embellished and manufactured his own truth to try to make the points he felt important. To hurt is human. To lie to get others to appreciate your hurt is fraud. Gaude’s book is well presented, if over-laden with the same tired racial whining that typifies so much discourse today. I wish though I hadn’t bothered to read it. I won’t enjoy Baldwin any longer now that I have.