Three or More Is a Riot: Notes on How We Got Here: 2012–2025

New Yorker staff writer Cobb (The Matter of Black Lives) offers an expansive collection of his published essays, spanning from 17-year-old Trayvon Martin’s murder in 2012, which “ruined the mood of a nation that had, just a few years earlier, elected its first black president,” to Donald Trump’s return to office in 2025. The volume includes political reportage, thoughtful cultural criticism of the films Black Panther and Django Unchained, and obituaries and profiles of figures like civil rights icon John Lewis and “black America’s Attorney General” Benjamin Crump, a lawyer known for representing the families of Black men slain by the police. The collection’s through line is Cobb’s sharp exploration of how America’s history of white supremacy continues to influence contemporary events. This is most poignant in the author’s on the ground coverage of numerous police killings of unarmed Black civilians and the mass shootings at Charleston’s Emanuel AME Church and Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue. Cobb provides incisive historical context to these events, like “the 184 recorded lynchings” in South Carolina’s history, that prove they are not tragic outliers but “part of an enduring narrative.” The book also serves as a real-time record of the growing reactionary backlash to Obama’s presidency and the emergence of Trumpism. It’s both an illuminating time capsule and an insightful analysis of how the country’s history shapes its present. (Oct.)