I welcome this new edition of Oliver Cromwell Cox’s brilliant work. Published amid Cold War repression and postwar racist violence, it is as fresh and urgent as ever. It stands not only as one of the most incisive materialist analyses of race and racism but as a true classic in the sociology of race.” —ROBIN D.G. KELLEY, New York University This touchstone book is second only to Gunnar Myrdal’s American Dilemma as a classic in the field.” —WERNER SOLLORS, Harvard University.