A Blistering Reassessment of How Race Has Shadowed Every Major American Anniversary
In America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows the Nation's Anniversaries, celebrated public intellectual and New York Times bestselling author Eddie S. Glaude Jr. delivers a powerful and timely examination of the United States at its most celebratory — and most revealing — moments.
As the country approaches its 250th birthday in 2026, Glaude looks back at the major anniversaries that have defined the American story — from the Centennial and Sesquicentennial to the Bicentennial — and reveals how race has consistently shadowed these national milestones. With unflinching honesty, he explores the vicious cycles of American history: the enduring refusal to confront the country’s true nature and the mythology that often disguises hard truths about freedom, belonging, and power.
Drawing on voices from W.E.B. Du Bois and Herman Melville to Martin Luther King Jr. and John Dos Passos, Glaude offers a candid, deeply reflective meditation on the unfinished work of American democracy. This is not a book of easy patriotism or comforting myths. It is a clear-eyed call to reckon with the past in order to imagine a more honest future.
