Eddie S. Glaude Jr.

BIBLIOGRAPHIC DETAILS
(Print: 6/30/2020; Crown; 272 pages; 9780525575320)
Audio: 8/5/2020; Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group; duration: 7:49:14; 9780593167151
(Feature Film: No).

SUMMARY/EVALUATION:
I’m pretty sure I selected this book because it was one of Goodreads’ best of 2020 in the Non-Fiction category.
It’s philosophical, biographical (James Baldwin) and autobiographical (Eddie Glaude). His primary focus is the life and philosophy of James Baldwin. He uses various episodes from Baldwins life and writings as launchpads to expound. It’s an in-depth look at how the political leaders through the 60’s to the present have affected the lives of African Americans.

AUTHOR & NARRATOR:
Eddie S. Glaude (1968). According to Wikipedia, Glaude “is an American academic. He is the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, where he is also the Chair of the Center for African American Studies and the Chair of the Department of African American Studies.[1] He is the author of the 2020 book Begin Again, about James Baldwin and the history of American politics.”

GENRE:
Philosophy, Politics, Biography, Auto Biography, James Baldwin

SUBJECTS:
History 1960’s, New York, The South, Black Panthers, Black Power, James Baldwin, Martin Luther King

SAMPLE QUOTATION:
From the Introduction
"Reading Jimmy, then, requires much more than an encounter with one's pain. It is a demanding practice: tracing his references (understanding his invocation of Henry James, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Marcel Proust, the blues, etc.), feeling his language (how he sits with the King James Bible, finds resources in Shakespeare, and revels in Black English), and tracking his insights across a wide array of work. Close to seven thousand pages of work. Since that fateful day in graduate school when I finally decided to 'sit with him,' I have been an ardent reader of James Baldwin. What I have learned over these three decades is that Baldwin's way of translating what he saw and making it real for others still has something to say to us. His understanding of America and his particular insights about its contradictions and failures endure and offer ways of seeing the country afresh."

RATING: I give this 3 stars. It is well written and insightful.
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Glaude is strongest when adapting and applying the words of Baldwin to our times--especially comparing the similarities of the Trump era and the Age of Reagan for example. His notes at the end thanking his students for being open with their anxieties about the times show that he's a keen listener. He's also amazing at taking not just quotes from Baldwin, but the life of the man, his trauma, and his personality, and talking about what we can learn from it. The section at the end, where he looks for Baldwin's grave, makes me think that Eddie could do a remarkable piece of journalism if he wanted. It only loses steam as even with the wealth of research he did (from films, interviews, other books, etc.), at times the book ventures a bit too heavily into guessing about Baldwin's inner thoughts. But that's a minor criticism. This is worth reading.… (more)