... and economic distinctiveness persists in part because of global processes, not in spite of them. The book weaves its analysis into stories about the history and global impact of blues music, the social and racial complexities of Cotton Carnival, and the global rise of FedEx, headquartered in Memphis...

... and the police. Most critics read Blood on the Forge as a kind of insider critique of the Left: sympathetic to Marxism yet concerned primarily with the seemingly insurmountable racial barriers to proletarian revolution. What critics underestimate, however, is the role of blues music, both...