Recommended reading: Clint Smith’s “How the Word is Passed,” in which Smith — a poet and a staff writer at The Atlantic — leads a tour of a half-dozen or so sites important, in some way, to the nation’s history of slavery. The tour takes us to places expected (such as Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello) and unexpected (such as New York City, which, at one point in its history, had more enslaved Black people than any other urban area in North America). We even travel to Goree Island, off the coast of Senegal, to visit the notorious House of Slaves and its Door of No Return, through which thousands of enslaved Africans walked to board ships to carry them to bondage.

The most compelling (and chilling) chapter, though, takes place at Blandford Cemetery in Petersburg, Virginia, where some 30,000 Confederate soldiers are buried — and, as you might imagine, a hotbed for believers in the “Lost Cause,” the idea that the South fought the Civil War to defend states’ rights and not to protect slavery. Reputable historians have thoroughly debunked the “Lost Cause” idea — but we live in a post-facts world today, right? So Smith, a Black man, returns to the cemetery to witness a Sons of Confederate Veterans commemoration celebration. He pulls out a small journal and starts taking notes. People notice. It’s a small, but legitimately scary, moment. (A version of this chapter previously appeared in The Atlantic, which is where I first noticed it.)

Note-taking habits aside, Smith makes for an ideal traveling companion — smart, savvy and not shy about asking questions. I did wish, from time to time, that an editor had toned down a needlessly poetic passage or two, but that’s a small complaint. “How the Word is Passed,” selected by The New York Times Book Review as one of the 10 best books of 2021, is an essential contribution to understanding how the United States still grapples with the legacy of slavery.

On a barely related note: This is the first book in a year or maybe two that I’ve checked out from the Corvallis-Benton County Public Library and returned by its due date. To that lucky reader next in line to get the book: No need to thank me.