"Winner of the Frances Fuller Victor Award for General Nonfiction, Oregon Book Awards" "Shortlisted for the Ralph Waldo Emerson Award, Phi Beta Kappa Society" "Shortlisted for the MAAH Stone Book Award, Museum of African American History" "One of Whoopi Goldberg's Favorite Things, ABC The View" "New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice" "Chicago Tribune writer John Warner's Book That Will Help You Better Understand the Messed-Up Nature of the World" "One of The Undefeated's 25 Can't Miss Books of 2019" "One of The Progressive's Favorite Books of 2019" "One of LitHub's 50 Favorite Books of the Year" "One of Inside Higher Ed's Books to Give the Educator in Your Life for the Holidays" Nicholas Buccola is the author of The Political Thought of Frederick Douglass and the editor of The Essential Douglass and Abraham Lincoln and Liberal Democracy. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Salon, and many other publications. He is the Elizabeth and Morris Glicksman Chair in Political Science at Linfield College in McMinnville, Oregon, and lives in Portland.
"A great read."-Whoopi Goldberg, The View
How the clash between the civil rights firebrand and the father of modern conservatism continues to illuminate America's racial divide
On February 18, 1965, an overflowing crowd packed the Cambridge Union in Cambridge, England, to witness a historic televised debate between James Baldwin, the leading literary voice of the civil rights movement, and William F. Buckley Jr., a fierce critic of the movement and America's most influential conservative intellectual. The topic was "the American dream is at the expense of the American Negro," and no one who has seen the debate can soon forget it. Nicholas Buccola's The Fire Is upon Us is the first book to tell the full story of the event, the radically different paths that led Baldwin and Buckley to it, the controversies that followed, and how the debate and the decades-long clash between the men continues to illuminate America's racial divide today.
Born in New York City only fifteen months apart, the Harlem-raised Baldwin and the privileged Buckley could not have been more different, but they both rose to the height of American intellectual life during the civil rights movement. By the time they met in Cambridge, Buckley was determined to sound the alarm about a man he considered an "eloquent menace." For his part, Baldwin viewed Buckley as a deluded reactionary whose popularity revealed the sickness of the American soul. The stage was set for an epic confrontation that pitted Baldwin's call for a moral revolution in race relations against Buckley's unabashed elitism and implicit commitment to white supremacy.
A remarkable story of race and the American dream, The Fire Is upon Us reveals the deep roots and lasting legacy of a conflict that continues to haunt our politics. "A great read."---Whoopi Goldberg, The View "A gripping snapshot of a country riven by injustice yet anxious about radical change." "Both a dual biography of Buckley and Baldwin and an acute commentary on a great intellectual prizefight. . . . [Nicholas Buccola] deftly guides the reader through the rhetorical and philosophical moves of Baldwin's speech. . . . The Fire Is Upon Us becomes revelatory in its interpretation of Buckley's performance. . . . It is tempting to view the Baldwin-Buckley debate as a small victory for the idea of racial equality: Baldwin carried the floor vote 544 to 164. But part of the wisdom of The Fire Is Upon Us is that it leaves the import of the evening open to question."---Thomas Meaney, New York Times Book Review "Rigorous and even-handed. . . . [T]houghtful and generous. . . . The contemporary reader is likely to experience surprise at some of Buckley's opinions, and to delight at reminders of Baldwin in his heyday."---James Campbell, Wall Street Journal "
The Fire Is Upon Us is written for readers on both the left and the right, its prose wonderfully accessible . . . [a
