An essential account of modern America, from Obama to Trump, from black lives matter to white supremacists rising - by the bestselling author of Between the World and Me Obama's presidency was a watershed moment in American history. From 2008-2016, the leader of the free world was a black man. In those eight years, Obama transformed the conversation around race, gender, class and wealth - inspiring hope but also attracting criticism and breeding discontent. 'I've been wondering who might fill the intellectual void after James Baldwin died. Clearly it is Ta-Nehisi Coates' Toni Morrison In this unflinching book, Ta-Nehisi Coates takes stock of Obama's eight years in power, through such iconic, unmissable essays as 'Fear of a Black President' and 'The Case for Reparations'. His account traverses the intersections of the political, the ideological and the cultural, presenting an America in radical flux and yet still in the grip of racial injustice, class warfare and institutional conspiracy. And it reflects on the author's own journey through these eight years, charting the public through the private in passages of startling intimate and piercingly relevant memoir. Ta-Nehisi Coates is one of our most brilliant, most fearless and most essential writers alive today - and his work is crucial to understand race in America today.