'A scholarly study of the real roots of what Jacobson calls 'America's largely assimilated but ultimately 'unmeltable' ethics'. It's a startling point of view for readers who are accustomed to the self-congratulatory myth of America as a beacon of liberty to which the 'huddled masses' of the world l[...]

Matthew Frye Jacobson argues in this text about America's racial odyssey, that race resides not in nature but in the contingencies of politics and culture. In ever-changing racial categories we glimpse the competing theories of history and collective destiny by which power has been organized and con[...]