Description: Speaking powerfully to the question of how the circumstances of race and racism have changed in our time--and how these changes will affect our future--this book studies the contradictions and incoherence of a system that idealizes black celebrities in politics, popular culture, and sports even as it diminishes the average African-American citizen.
Brief description: Thomas C. Holt is Professor of History at the University of Chicago and author of The Problem of Freedom.
Review Quotes: This very stimulating series of essays provides an insightful and highly readable analysis of the historical trajectory of race and racism in the modern and postmodern eras. A provocative and cogent discussion.--Waldo E. Martin, Jr., author of The Mind of Frederick Douglass