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Nothing Personal

Author James Baldwin

Foreword by Imani Perry

Afterword by Eddie S. Glaude Jr.

Hardcover

$18.00 US

Beacon Press

5.23"W x 7.3"H x 0.51"D

On sale May 04, 2021 | 104 Pages | 978-0-8070-0642-9

Grades 9-12 + AP/IB

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James Baldwin’s critique of American society at the height of the civil rights movement brings his prescient thoughts on social isolation, race, and police brutality to a new generation of readers.

James Baldwin’s critique of American society at the height of the civil rights movement brings his prescient thoughts on social isolation, race, and police brutality to a new generation of readers.

Available for the first time in a stand-alone edition, Nothing Personal is Baldwin’s deep probe into the American condition. Considering the Black Lives Matter protests in the summer of 2020—which were met with tear gas and rubber bullets the same year white supremacists entered the US Capitol with little resistance, openly toting flags of the Confederacy—Baldwin’s documentation of his own troubled times cuts to the core of where we find ourselves today.

Baldwin’s thoughts move through an interconnected range of questions, from America’s fixation on eternal youth, to its refusal to recognize the past, its addiction to consumerism, and the lovelessness that fuels it in its cities and popular culture. He recounts his own encounter with police in a scene disturbingly similar to those we see today documented with ever increasing immediacy. This edition also includes a new foreword from interdisciplinary scholar Imani Perry and an afterword from noted Baldwin scholar Eddie S. Glaude Jr. Both explore and situate the essay within the broader context of Baldwin’s work, the Movement for Black Lives, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the presidency of Donald Trump.

Nothing Personal is both a eulogy and a declaration of will. In bringing this work into the twenty-first century, readers new and old will take away fundamental and recurring truths about life in the US. It is both a call to action, and an appeal to love and to life.

James Baldwin (1924–1987) was a novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and social critic, and one of America’s foremost writers. His writing explores palpable yet unspoken intricacies of racial, sexual, and class distinctions in Western societies, most notably in mid-twentieth-century America. A Harlem, New York, native, he primarily made his home in the south of France. He is the author of several novels and books of nonfiction, including Notes of a Native Son, Go Tell It on the Mountain, Giovanni’s Room, Another Country, Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone, If Beale Street Could Talk, Just Above My Head, The Fire Next Time, No Name in the Street, and The Evidence of Things Not Seen, and of the poetry collection Jimmy’s Blues. Learn more about James Baldwin

Foreword
Imani Perry

Nothing Personal
James Baldwin

Afterword
Eddie S. Glaude Jr.

About the Author

About the Contributors

About

James Baldwin’s critique of American society at the height of the civil rights movement brings his prescient thoughts on social isolation, race, and police brutality to a new generation of readers.

Author

Foreword
Imani Perry

Nothing Personal
James Baldwin

Afterword
Eddie S. Glaude Jr.

About the Author

About the Contributors

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October 22 2020

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“Books are a students’ passport to entering and actively participating in a global society with the empathy, compassion, and knowledge it takes to become the problem solvers the world needs.” –Laura Robb Research shows that reading and literacy directly impacts students’ academic success and personal growth. To help promote the importance of daily independent

NEW! PRH Education Classroom Libraries

Classroom Libraries English Language Arts Environmental Science Favorite Authors & Series General Graphic Novels History Middle School References Science Social Studies The Arts

October 22 2020

Secondary Education Inspire Teaching and Learning with Outstanding Books

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