Enid Logan, “At this Defining Moment: Barack Obama’s Presidential Candidacy and the New Politics of Race” (NYU Press, 2011)

Enid Logan‘s At this Defining Moment: Barack Obama: Presidential Candidacy and the New Politics of Race (NYU Press, 2011) examines the campaign and politics around the election of Barack Obama from a sociological perspective. Drawing on a rich array of television, newspaper, and blogs, Logan challenges many of the conventional interpretations of the Obama victory. In trying to define the “new politics of race”, the book is a contribution to the field of political science, where scholars have also grappled with putting the first African American president into political, historical, and social context. One of the more compelling chapters of the book deals with the intersection of Hispanic and Asian Americans and the Obama campaign. The length, clear-writing, and salient topic should make this a considered adoption for many courses in American politics, race and politics, and campaigns/elections.