Transition contains some of the smartest cultural criticism available anywhere.
There is no party line. With his longtime friend and collaborator, Professor of Afro-American Studies and of Philosophy Kwame Anthony Appiah, Gates has made Transition a venue for unusual, and sometimes contentious, writing on ethnicity and identity. By soliciting unusual writing from far-flung thinkers, we seek to transcend the compartmentalization that characterizes contemporary literary life and the academic pursuit of ethnic studies. Like many another American cultural artifact, Transition came out of Africa. The original Transition got its start in Kampala, Uganda in 1961.