America, U.S.A. by Eddie S. Glaude Jr. 

A Blistering Reassessment of Race, Freedom, and the Myths That Bind America

In America, U.S.A., celebrated public intellectual and New York Times bestselling author Eddie S. Glaude Jr. delivers a powerful and timely meditation on how race has shadowed every major anniversary in American history — from the Centennial and Bicentennial to the nation’s approaching 250th birthday in 2026.

With unflinching honesty, Glaude examines the vicious cycles of the American story: the enduring refusal to confront the country’s true nature, the mythology that disguises hard truths, and the double consciousness that has defined the nation since its founding. Drawing on voices from W.E.B. Du Bois and Herman Melville to Martin Luther King Jr. and John Dos Passos, he reveals how celebrations of American freedom have often been shadowed by exclusion, violence, and the unfinished work of democracy.

This is not a book of easy patriotism or comforting myths. It is a candid, deeply reflective call to reckon with the past in order to imagine a more honest future. As the country prepares for its semiquincentennial, Glaude asks what it would mean to truly face who we have been — and who we might yet become.