This is the first detailed account of the 5,000 black troops who were reluctantly sent north by the United States Army during World War II to help build the Alaska Highway and install the companion Canol pipeline. Theirs were the first black regiments deployed outside the lower 48 states during the war. The enlisted men, most of them from the South, faced racial discrimination from white officers, were barred from entering any towns for fear they would procreate a mongrel race with local women, and endured winter conditions they had never experienced before. Despite this, they won praise for...

"Why can't you be more like us?" That's the first of a thousand questions that the author asks on behalf of the American reader. His answer is in the Introduction, where he explains that the Spanish conquered a vibrant indigenous people in what was to become Mexico while Anglo-Saxons settled the United States with people like themselves. The author introduces each of 28 chapters, ranging from pre-Columbian Mexico to wars and revolutions, drug trafficking and illegal immigration, with a brief background history. Then come the Q & A. Over 380 pages there are short biographies and drawings of...