America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows the Nation’s Anniversaries

Eddie S. Glaude Jr. is a professor of African American Studies at Princeton and one of the more direct voices in American intellectual life. America, U.S.A. uses national anniversaries as a lens for examining how the country tells stories about itself—which stories get enshrined, which get revised, and who gets to decide. He argues that the impulse to use anniversaries as occasions for uncomplicated pride often requires hiding, minimizing, or distorting the role that race played in the events being commemorated. The book draws on history, political philosophy, and current events in roughly equal measure. It’s neither a polemic nor an academic treatise; Glaude writes for general readers and doesn’t hide his own perspective, but he builds his case from evidence rather than assertion. For readers of Ta-Nehisi Coates, Nikole Hannah-Jones, or Ibram X. Kendi who want something more pointed and less autobiographical.