**In this "urgently relevant"* collection featuring the landmark essay
"The Case for Reparations," 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.
New York Times Bestseller - Finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Book
Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the Dayton Literary Peace
Prize
Named One of the Best Books of the Year by The New York Times - USA
Today - Time - Los Angeles Times - San Francisco Chronicle -
Essence - O: The Oprah Magazine - The Week - Kirkus Reviews
*Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"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. 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."
But the story of these present-day eight years is not just about
presidential politics. 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. 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.
We Were Eight Years in Power features Coates's iconic essays first
published in The Atlantic, including "Fear of a Black President," "The
Case for Reparations," and "The Black Family in the Age of Mass
Incarceration," along with eight fresh essays that revisit each year of
the Obama administration through Coates's own experiences, observations,
and intellectual development, capped by a bracingly original assessment
of the election that fully illuminated the tragedy of the Obama era. We
Were Eight Years in Power is a vital account of modern America, from
one of the definitive voices of this historic moment.
