A slender book devoted to ""examining the varying pattern of social acceptance and integration of the Afro-American population throughout the countries of North and South America"" might seem hopelessly brief, but Professor Knight, a Johns Hopkins historian, drags on without developing any one idea. We learn that by 1833 the West Indian plantocracy went broke, and for some reason Britain abolished its slave trade in 1808; lost in the shuffle are worthwhile references to the destruction of independent African economies and the difference between ""settler"" and ""non-settler"" America. The book includes simplified treatment of the value of the slave system in launching European industrial development. On the subject of the 20th century, Knight touches all bases, from applause for the Kennedy-Johnson civil rights record to praise of the Harlem Renaissance to great expectations for the future of black people in the ""racial democracy"" of Brazil, whose admitedly color-blind dictators are not mentioned. Knight describes the book as ""this little work""; his intentions are good, but he has reason to be modest.