Review of Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own

In Begin Again, Eddie Glaude, a Professor of American Studies at Princeton University, utilizes mainly the nonfictional work of James Baldwin (1924–1987) in order to explore the nature of racism and the responses to it in the United States primarily from 1955 to the present. He states that a major catalyst for the book was his belief that exploring the trajectory of Baldwin’s life in relation to the issue of racial oppression served as a way to try to deal with his sense of betrayal with “the election of Donald Trump and the ugliness that consumed my country” (p. xvii). His book is not a conventional scholarly work since it is a synthesis of autobiography, biography, literary criticism, and historical commentary. Moreover, it does not pretend to be a neutral, objective account. For, Glaude makes it clear that he is emotionally immersed in the issues he addresses, which is evident when he states that “today we confront the ugliness of who we are” (p. xxviii). According to Glaude, “That ugliness isn’t just Donald Trump or murderous police officers or loud racists screaming horrible things. It is the image of children in cages with mucus-smeared shirts and soiled pants glaring back at us” [p. xxviii). The book, then, is a highly personal account of how Glaude struggled to understand Baldwin’s life and work in an attempt to understand the current racial crisis centering on the relationship between White people and Black people. Because of its personal