By Rhae Lynn Barnes. A history that chronicles how blackface dominated American society culturally, financially, and racially for nearly two centuries. Unravels the complex, subterranean, and all-too-often expunged history of “Darkology”―the insidious study, commodification, and dehumanization of Black life, through which performers caricatured the enslaved and formerly enslaved for their supposed subservience and happy demeanor. Reveals the extent to which blackface took center stage in every era of American history. By tracing minstrelsy’s evolution through oral histories, material culture, and a wide range of multimedia sources, forces readers to reckon with the myriad ways the American Dream wore blackface. Read more.