PURSUING JUSTICE

In this provocative memoir, Barack Obama's history-making attorney general and close confidant reveals the story of his life, from a childhood haunted by explosive family secrets to his years in the White House - with revelations about the war on terror, the financial crisis, and mass incarceration.

PURSUING JUSTICE takes us through Holder's own rich and fascinating life before he met Barack Obama, and gives us a dramatic inside look at the historic and controversial events that defined the Obama administration. Holder also addresses his own experiences on the ground and in the homes of grieving parents in places like Ferguson, Missouri, and his aggressive pursuit of civil rights cases and the battles to expand voting rights, LGBTQ rights, and the rights of undocumented immigrants. More than a rich and inspiring personal narrative or an inside account of a historic Administration, this is a thoughtful and provocative book that boldly dramatizes the history, limitations, and possibilities of American justice in our time.

Eric Holder served as the Attorney General of the United States from February 2009 to April 2015. He was the third-longest serving Attorney General in U.S. history and the first African American to hold that office. He has served in government for more than 30 years. The Holder Institute for Civil and Political Rights at Columbia University is dedicated to advancing Mr. Holder's legacy of meaningful engagement in the most pressing civil rights issues of this era.

Douglas A. Blackmon is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of SLAVERY BY ANOTHER NAME: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II (Doubleday 2008).