Acting French

The author, Ta-Nehisi ("Tah-Nuh-Hah-See") Coates, has been just killing it at the Atlantic for the last couple of years.

He has an amazing approach. It's simultaneously cerebral and heart-felt, and very grounded in his identity as a black man who grew up in an intellectual home in a black neighborhood in Baltimore during the crack era.

Coates never excelled in formal schooling, but he has really driven hard in his blog writings to deeply understand some topics, in particular how they relate to slavery. No matter how much you think you know about the black experience, slavery, and the Civil War, I guarantee you that you'll have a lot of aha moments reading his work.

For example, I did not know about the value of slaves on the eve of the Civil War -- the slaves were worth more than all the manufacturing base in the country. Thinking about that makes the stakes for the South in the Civil War so evident.

It is a beautifully written and interesting article.