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Among those reacting to President Obama’s Nobel Peace prize last week was acclaimed intellectual and philosopher Cornel West. While on tour to promote his new book, West remarked that the honor “puts …[Obama] in a very tough situation because if you got a Peace prize and you end up being a war president in Afghanistan, if you got a Peace prize and you don’t want to investigate and prosecute people who have been torturing people, turn your back, it doesn’t look good.” Cornel West has long supported Barack Obama, during and after his election, but has been clear on criticizing the President’s anti-progressive stances on issues like the economy and war. His long and illustrious career spans decades of writing insightful books such as “Race Matters,” which deeply changed American discourse on race, and the New York Times bestseller, “Democracy Matters.” Cornel West was among the earliest academics to study hip hop as a means of poetic expression, which was one of several reasons behind a very public confrontation with then Harvard president Larry Summers leading to Dr. West eventually leaving Harvard for a position at Princeton. Most recently Cornel West has struggled with prostate cancer, and in the wake of his recovery has released his memoir, Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud, co-written with David Ritz. Ritz has co-written the autobiographies of Ray Charles, Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin, and B.B. King. I had the opportunity last week to interview Dr. West at length about his new book. <\/p>\n