The Atlantic’s Ta-Nehisi Coates is about to drop an opus about Chicago housing that will revive the long dormant U.S. case for reparations. Coates most recently made news with what’s been described as a "public intellectual death match" with political journalist Jonathan Chait over race, the "culture of poverty" and "other people’s pathologies." (Coates won.) Judging by today’s blog post, Coates is gearing up for another intellectual title, heralding next week’s release with reparations quotes from the Bible, Enlightenment philosopher John Locke and Bailey Wyatt, a freedman speaking at an 1866 political meeting.

Caribbean nations through 15-member body CARICOM thrust reparations back onto the international stage last year, with their demand for compensation from former colonial powers France, the U.K. and the Netherlands.