Timely, important, and fantastically inventive in terms of form, The 1619 Project reframes American history — from its origin to modern day — by centering the racial inequality that continues to define our country. The inclusion of fiction and poetry — from writers such as Claudia Rankine, Jesymn Ward, and Yaa Gyasi, — is an exceptionally exciting departure from traditional historic narratives, and situates the significance of art alongside essay.

Together with The New York Times Magazine, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones collects essays, poems, and works of fiction that engage with the legacy of American slavery, and how its effects have led to contemporary, structural racism. -Evelyn Maguire