In exceptionally close analyses of six novels by black writer Oscar Micheaux (1884-1948?) beginning with The Conquest, written in 1913, The Forged Note (1915), The Homesteader (1917), The Wind from Nowhere (1941), The Case of Mrs. Wingate (1945), and The Story of Dorothy Stanfield (1946), Young traces the development of Micheaux's racial theories and of his stance as apologist for American imperialism. Young argues that these novels are examples of the detrimental effect of oppressive myths on early twentieth-century black behavior and values. The characters in the novels tend to mirror the...