This collection of new essays edited by Frank Shuffelton enters into one of the most topical and energetic debates on our time - the subject of ethnicity. With a focus on the eighteenth century and colonial American values, till now overlooked in the debate, Shuffelton's collection offers agile and original yet scholarly readings of `race' from some of the strongest voices in academia, ranging from interpretations of early captivity narratives by Native Americans and African Americans to representation among the Pennsylvania `Dutch'. With a three-part structure moving from questions of race and ethnicity to varieties of ethnic representation, and finally to individual confrontations (e.g. Phillis Wheatley and the Black American Revolution), this volume sheds light on the confrontations of ethnically different peoples, launches a timely, full-scale investigation of the construction of American culture, and should enhance graduate school curricula across America.

Entering one of the most topical and energetic debates of our time, this collection of new essays addresses the issue of ethnicity, focusing on colonial America, a period which has been previously overlooked in recent scholarship about the formation of American culture. The essays in 'A Mixed Race' suggest that American culture has arisen out of unusually rich and interactive ethnic mix--inescapably multicultural from its very beginnings--and that this representation of cultural differences has fundamentally defined American culture. They argue that culture shaped by responses to ethnic and racial difference is not merely a modern circumstance but one at the base of American history.

'Shuffelton's collection includes several excellent historical studies ... a fascinating collection of essays, some of which address fresh material which will be of great interest to students of American ethnicity.' Kate Rhodes, University of Wolverhampton, American Studies, Volume 28, Part 2 - 1994