Wittke's social history posits the minstrel show as a unique development that, but for Negro slavery, would not have emerged as America's one distinctive contribution to theater history. He quite successfully argues with those who claim American minstrelsy was an extension or transplantation of the minstrel tradition of medieval Europe. Besides the love of song and "a common gift of verse," the minstrels of medieval Europe and those of the American tradition have nothing in common. In this small regard, then, Wittke's analysis vindicates those who argue that American minstrelsy was just another instance of white performers building successful careers by "ripping off" Black cultural traditions and forms. Indeed, Wittke's social history freely details the sociometric connections that made this possible. Writing, as he was, in the 1920s, Wittke did not suffer any of the current concerns about "political correctness;" hence American minstrelsy's perversion and caricature of its Black prototypes quite understandably, in Wittke's time, veered toward racist ends. In fact, the simultaneous beauty and repugnance of Wittke's treatment is this: he makes no excuses, but rather lets American minstrelsy speak for itself. As he put it, "Happy memories of the burnt cork semi-circle" prompted him to write this volume. Accordingly, if you can stomach the racialized content that speaks through him (quite telling, in and of itself) and pump out the bile resulting therefrom, then it's worth the read for insight into the backstage world of early American theater history.