The Tar Baby: A Global History

"A remarkably rich and wide-ranging book that draws on many histories, geographies, and disciplines in exploring one of the nation's--and the world's--most disturbing but strangely elusive racial stories."--Eric J. Sundquist, author of King's Dream: The Legacy of Martin Luther King's 'I Have a Dream' Speech

"Exhaustively researched, meticulously argued, and elegantly written, Bryan Wagner's The Tar Baby places Brer Rabbit and the gang at the very heart of an investigation that both illuminates the intricacies of the tar baby and exposes it to an uncustomary broadening of the scope and range of its meanings. Wagner's tar baby is not one we know; his account opens a wider horizon of persuasions and alignments that interrogate the onset of capitalism and the disorienting experience of early globalization."--Hortense J. Spillers, author of Black, White, and in Color: Essays on American Literature and Culture

"Superb scholarship with origina