In this intriguing study, Robert Nowatzki reveals the unexpected relationships between blackface entertainment and antislavery sentiment in the United States and Britain. He contends that the ideological ambiguity of both phenomena enabled the similarities between early minstrelsy and abolitionism in their depictions of African Americans, as well as their appropriations of each other's rhetoric, imagery, sentiment, and characterization. Because the antislavery movement had stronger support in Britain and an association with the middle classes, Nowatzki argues, its conflicts with blackface...