By the author of the New York Times best seller Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word and, more recently, The Persistence of the Color Line: Racial Politics and the Obama Presidency ("Provocative and richly insightful." —Brent Staples, The New York Times Book Review; "Excellent."—David Remnick, The New Yorker)
The definitive reckoning with one of the most explosively contentious and sharply divisive issues in American society, a book extraordinary for its cool reason and genuine fairness—at once a recollection of the little-known history of affirmative action and an anatomy of its pros and cons.
Randall Kennedy is the Michael R. Klein Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. He received his undergraduate degree from Princeton and his law degree from Yale. He attended Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar and is a former clerk to Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.