From one of the definitive journalists of this era—acclaimed historian, Pulitzer Prize finalist, staff writer at The New Yorker, and Dean of Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism—comes a kaleidoscopic, real-time portrait of the turbulent past decade.
What just happened?
From the moment that Trayvon Martin’s senseless murder initiated the Black Lives Matter movement in 2014, America has been convulsed by new social movements—around guns, gender violence, sexual harassment, race, policing, and on and on—and an equally powerful backlash that abetted the rise of the MAGA movement. In this punchy, powerful collection of dispatches, mostly published in The New Yorker, Jelani Cobb pulls the signal from the noise of this chaotic era.
Cobb’s work as a reporter takes readers to the front lines of sometimes violent conflict, and he uses his gifts as a critic and historian to crack open the meaning of it all. Through a stunning mélange of narrative journalism, criticism, and penetrating profiles, Cobb’s writing captures the crises, characters, movements, and art of an era—and helps readers understand what might be coming next.
Cobb has added new material to this collection—retrospective pieces that bring these stories up-to-date and tie them together, shaping these powerful short dispatches into a cohesive, epic narrative of one of the most consequential periods in recent American history.
“In this collection of cultural criticism and reportage—drawn mostly from his writing for The New Yorker—Cobb offers a cleareyed look at a turbulent decade of grass-roots social movements and the eventual right-wing backlash they inspired.”—The New York Times, “21 Nonfiction Books Coming This Fall”
“Cobb offers an expansive collection of his published essays. . . . The volume includes political reportage, thoughtful cultural criticism . . . and obituaries and profiles. . . . The collection’s through line is Cobb’s sharp exploration of how America’s history of white supremacy continues to influence contemporary events. . . . Cobb provides incisive historical context. . . . It’s both an illuminating time capsule and an insightful analysis of how the country’s history shapes its present.”—Publishers Weekly
“Jelani Cobb’s Three Or More Is a Riot is a remarkable book, full of lyrical prose tracing our recent history from the democratic spring of the Obama years to the authoritarian winter now enveloping the nation in its cold embrace. Each essay is a vivid snapshot of the America that existed at the time and a glimpse at the one that might have been, ultimately showing the reader the how of what America came to be.”—Adam Serwer, New York Times bestselling author of The Cruelty Is the Point
“Three or More Is a Riot is an archive of a writer at the height of his powers—and his powers are many. Insight, historical memory, reportage, pith, and, not least of all, wit. All these gifts he deploys here without missing a beat, effortlessly weaving them into his own distinctive style. We live in a time when writers like Cobb are being targeted by the highest powers in this nation. Read this book to understand why.”—Ta-Nehisi Coates, author of The Message
“Trained first as a scholar and then as a journalist, Jelani Cobb is an essayist of rare erudition and integrity. From his first pieces about Trayvon Martin to his more recent explorations of race in the Trump era, he has been an exemplar of intellectual honesty, fierce self-questioning, and independence. Jelani Cobb is a truth-teller and this book is a gift.”—David Remnick, editor of The New YorkerYou might also be interested in:
