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Title details for We Were Eight Years in Power by Ta-Nehisi Coates - Available

We Were Eight Years in Power

'One of the foremost essayists on race in the West' Nikesh Shukla, author of The Good Immigrant

by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Beresford Bennett
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
1 of 1 copy available

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of We Were Eight Years in Power by Ta-Nehisi Coates, read by Beresford Bennett.
From 2008-2016, the leader of the free world was a black man. Obama's presidency reshaped America and transformed the international conversation around politics, race, equality. But it attracted criticism and bred discontent as much as it inspired hope - so much so, that the world now faces an uncertain future under a very different kind of US President.
In this essential new book, peerless journalist and thinker Ta-Nehisi Coates takes stock of the Obama era, speaking authoritatively from political, ideological and cultural perspectives, and drawing a sophisticated and penetrating portrait of America today.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    October 5, 2017

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780241983584
      • File size: 393093 KB
      • Duration: 13:38:56

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      This collection of essays by Coates on the African-American experience contains one piece published in THE ATLANTIC magazine during each year of the Obama administration. Narrator Beresford Bennett's deliberate performance reflects his respect for the author, but his uneven cadences and unexpected emphases pull listeners out of the material. The essays--which cover topics ranging from Michelle Obama to Civil War restitution, the housing and finance sectors, and the prison system--are renewed via Coates's introductions and the perspective of time. The well-researched articles deserve listeners' full attention, but Bennett's questionable accents and mispronunciations eventually become too distracting. WE WERE EIGHT YEARS IN POWER, destined to be one of the most talked-about books of the year, should be read in print. C.B.L. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from August 14, 2017
      National Book Award-winner Coates (Between the World and Me) collects eight essays originally published in the Atlantic between 2008 and 2016, marking roughly the early optimism of Barack Obama's presidency and the 150th anniversary of the end of the Civil War. The selection includes blockbusters like "The Case for Reparations" and "The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration," which helped to establish Coates as one of the leading writers on race in America, as well as lesser-known pieces such as his profile of Bill Cosby (written in late 2008, before the reemergence of rape allegations against Cosby) and a piece on Michelle Obama before she became first lady. The essays are prefaced with new introductions that trace the articles from conception to publication and beyond. With hindsight, Coates examines the roots of his ideas ("Had I been wrong?" he writes, questioning his initial optimism about the Obama Administration) and moments of personal history that relay the influence of hip-hop, the books he read, and the blog he maintained on his writing. Though the essays are about a particular period, Coates's themes reflect broader social and political phenomena. It's this timeless timeliness--reminiscent of the work of George Orwell and James Baldwin--that makes Coates worth reading again and again. (Oct.)

      This review has been corrected; an earlier version said he won the Pulitzer Prize, for which he was nominated; in fact he won the National Book Award.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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