we were eight years in power an american tragedy

Coates powerfully examines the events of the Obama era from his intimate and revealing perspective-the point of view of a young writer who begins the journey in an unemployment office in Harlem and ends it in the Oval Office, interviewing a president. This book also examines the new voices, ideas, and movements for justice that emerged over this period-and the effects of the persistent, haunting shadow of our nation’s old and unreconciled history. In this sweeping collection of new and selected essays, Ta-Nehisi Coates explores the tragic echoes of that history in our own time: the unprecedented election of a black president followed by a vicious backlash that fueled the election of the man Coates argues is America’s “first white president.”īut the story of these present-day eight years is not just about presidential politics.

“We were eight years in power” was the lament of Reconstruction-era black politicians as the American experiment in multiracial democracy ended with the return of white supremacist rule in the South. Named One of the Best Books of the Year by The New York Times

Finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize.

In these “urgently relevant essays,”* the National Book Award–winning author of Between the World and Me “reflects on race, Barack Obama’s presidency and its jarring aftermath”*-including the election of Donald Trump.

We were eight years in power an american tragedy