It’s not straightforward, trying to assess a book written by someone whose stature and reputation loom large over the text. I have not read any books by the American academic and anti-racist writer Ibram X Kendi before, but I had absorbed his ideas and interventions into American racial discourse over the years, as well as the controversies. And so I was curious about his latest – and his first since the “anti-woke” backlash.
I tried reading it as a stand-alone text, rather than another chapter in Kendi’s history. Every book deserves to be judged on its own terms. And Chain of Ideas is a huge piece of research that clearly builds on the many years Kendi has spent writing on racism and his experience as a public figure. But does it rise to the occasion? I attempt to answer this below.
