This book is the second in a projected trilogy of studies on the biological history of the black in the Americas. In its predecessor, Another
Dimensionto the Black Diaspora, coauthored with Virginia Himmelsteib
King, the reader will find a preface containing an apologia of sorts for
attempting to unite the research of the biological and social sciences on
the one hand, and to bring the findings to bear on black history on the
other. Given the historical record of mistreatment of blacks by scientific
and pseudoscientific racists, an initial statement of this nature was
rightly de rigueur. A second would be redundant, and quite possibly
presumptuous, for the reception of Another Dimension has made clear
the existence of a methodologically sophisticated audience of scholars
that needs no lecturing from me on either the obscurantism of old
nature-nurture arguments or the value of cross-disciplinary research.