Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own by Eddie S. Glaude, Jr. In a book that the Washington Post called " a groundbreaking and informative guide to Baldwin and his era," Princeton professor Glaude has produced a powerful meditation on race in America. The book's focus is on Baldwin, as the title indicates, but this is not strictly a biography. Rather Glaude compares America's response to racism in Baldwin's time (and through Baldwin's eyes) to today, when the birth of the Black Lives Matter movement was met with the ascendance of Donald Trump and the violent resurgence of white nationalism.

Fortunately, Glaude finds hope and guidance in Baldwin as he discusses the painful cycle of Black resistance and white retrenchment around racism. This is a thoughtful and powerful exploration of race and memory, as well as a powerful interrogation of what we must ask of ourselves in order to call forth a new America. As James Baldwin himself put it, "Not everything is lost. Responsibility cannot be lost, it can only be abdicated. If one refuses abdication, one begins again.”