“This is a very well-written book that communicates complex ideas with clarity and interest. It is rare, in my experience, for an academic book written by a social scientist to be as interesting and exciting as a piece of fiction. This book is hard to put down because Davis’s story of how the United States as a nation came to define who is black reads like a mystery novel in which every historical event provides one more clue to the final murder of a people.” —Aida Hurtado American Journal of Sociology “Davis has given us a brilliant and informative history of the fateful policy commonly called the rule of hypodescent (the ‘one-drop’ rule) and the impact it has had psychologically, socially, economically, and politically on African-American history. Davis’s book is the most recent in the series of works written on this topic, but is by far the most thorough and insightful.” —G. Reginald Daniel Contemporary Sociology “This is an eye-opening appraisal of an issue often taken for granted in America.” —Publishers Weekly