Begin Again
James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own
Failed to add items
Sorry, we are unable to add the item because your shopping cart is already at capacity.
Add to Cart failed.
Please try again later
Add to Wish List failed.
Please try again later
Remove from wish list failed.
Please try again later
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
3 Months Free
$8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel anytime.
Offer ends on July 15, 2026 at 11:59 PT.
Begin Again
Narrated by:
Eddie S. Glaude Jr.
Buy Now for $21.97
-
Narrated by:
-
Eddie S. Glaude Jr.
-
Written by:
-
Eddie S. Glaude Jr.
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?
One of the Best Books of the Year: Time, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune • One of Esquire’s Best Biographies of All Time • 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.
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_t1
So incredibly relevant, engaging, and insightful.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
James Baldwin lived the turmoil of the Second Reconstruction of the 1960s and into the era of the betrayal of that movement by the America of Ronald Reagan. His was the life of the outsider, the truth telling prophetic observer, who never quite fit in. He was gay before that was accepted, especially in the Black community. He experienced much rejection, and responded at times to the injustice around him with rage. Yet finally he was dedicated to truth, a truth that would set all of America free from its past and enable it to move towards the beloved community of love. For that is what a true democracy is for all of its people.
In one of his later essays, Baldwin referenced Christ's letter to the Church at Ephesus in Revelation 2:5 - Remember from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works. The first works of America were the ideals and promise of the Declaration of Independence, a new hope for mankind. E. S. Glaude, and Jimmy Baldwin, his spiritual mentor and friend, call America once again to do those first works and to fulfill that promise.
Do The First Works
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.