Available for the first time in a stand-alone edition,Nothing Personalis Baldwins deep probe into the American condition. Considering the Black Lives Matter protests in the summer of 2020which 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 ConfederacyBaldwins documentation of his own troubled times cuts to the core of where we find ourselves today.

Baldwins thoughts move through an interconnected range of questions, from Americas 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 Baldwins work, the Movement for Black Lives, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the presidency of Donald Trump.