?This is a valuable and timely little book, which ought to be of interest and value to any person seriously interested in racial and ethnic relations. Wacker skillfully and percpetively analyzes the contributions of some of our earliest and most influential sociologists in this field, in particular Park and Thomas and secondarily Frazier, Hughes, Miller, Johnson, and Kallen. Wacker indicates the main contributions of these men, their approaches and points of view, as well as criticisms of them, particularly in the 1960s and 1970s, for their allegedly unscientific and, in some instances, assimilationist points of departure. ...Wacker also successfully refutes most of these criticisms and, in so doing, makes quite clear how great is our debt to these early pioneers. ...a useful tool for any course in racial or ethnic relations, as well as for courses in theory, particularly at the upper division or graduate level.?-Contemporary Sociology