In Chapter 5, I examine how four Pittsburgh Courier writers – Julia Bumry Jones, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Blanche Taylor Dickinson, and Zora Neale Hurston – code the cabaret flapper’s “sexual spending” within both the ideology of “race motherhood” and what Erin Chapman describes as the “sex-race marketplace.” The Courier’s typical cabaret flapper indulges – in fashion, alcohol, and sexual conquests – even as she must “sell” herself to sustain her rate of consumption. These writers present the Black flapper as threatening the New Negro Man, and by extension the race due to her “wasteful” excesses and dysgenic spending, and affirm the flapper’s foil: a reconceived version of the “race mother” – modern, urban, resilient but pragmatically more conservative versions of the New Negro Woman. With help from Old Negro maternal figures, these New Negro Women fix their flawed relationships or marriages and develop more companionate unions. Refusing to indulge in the shaming of the Black light-skinned elite respectable New Negro Woman, these Old Negro mammy or auntie figures do not represent the race as “progressive and race conscious” modern New Negro mothers, but, rather, they nurture and console the Black female protagonist suffering some form of trauma associated with the Great Migration.

Instead of ushering in an era of enduring peace and partnership, the end of the Cold War was followed by a decade of turmoil, with wars in the Persian Gulf, the Balkans, and Chechnya, political violence in Moscow, and controversy over the eastward expansion of NATO. The disappointments and turbulence stemmed in part from the personalities and political choices of top leaders, including the erratic and increasingly autocratic Boris Yeltsin, the skeptical and stingy responses of George H. W. Bush to the reform and collapse of the Soviet Union, and the way Bill Clinton unreservedly embraced Yeltsin while also antagonizing him by deciding to enlarge NATO and wage war against Serbia. As this chapter shows, though, American–Russian relations in the 1990s were also roiled by widely shared popular attitudes, including American triumphalist mythology about how the Cold War ended, unrealistic Russian expectations of massive US aid and respect despite Russian corruption, mismanagement, and weakness. The bright promise of the end of the Cold War was marred both by arrogant American unilateralism and by a Russian slide into depression and authoritarianism.

This chapter analyzes why high hopes in 1933 for expanded trade and strategic cooperation were not fulfilled in the following years. It argues that the failures did not stem solely from Joseph Stalin’s evil actions. Presenting a more complex story, the chapter highlights how conservative Americans exaggerated threats of Soviet-instigated communist revolution, how Ambassador William Bullitt’s intemperate diplomacy hampered relations, and how the US Navy obstructed President Roosevelt’s plans for building warships for the USSR. Despite those problems, the descent of the Soviet Union into the Great Terror, and the signing of the Nazi–Soviet pact in 1939, the United States did not break relations with the USSR. As a result, Roosevelt kept open the possibility of a military partnership as war erupted in Europe. Going beyond the strategic and economic dimensions, the chapter highlights how harsh Soviet anti-American propaganda sought to buttress belief in the superiority of socialism over capitalism while Hollywood films ridiculed ascetic, doctrinaire Soviet communists and suggested that they were susceptible to seduction by the consumer pleasures of capitalist countries.

Since 2013, Elon Musk has been at war with car dealers in the United States. Battles have played out in legislative backrooms, courtrooms, governors’ offices, and news media outlets across the country. As of now, Musk has won the war. Tesla has established a foothold across the country, sold over two million cars without using a dealer, established a loyal customer base, and overcome most states’ franchise dealer laws. Direct Hit tells the story of this fight, taking readers into courtrooms and legislative halls where the dealers tried in vain to derail Tesla’s advances. The book shares key insights into the strategic choices made by dealers, legacy car companies, and electric-vehicle start-ups. With a combination of historical narrative, blow-by-blow accounts of the Tesla wars, and a consideration of America’s longstanding romance with the personal automobile, Direct Hit shares a uniquely American drama over cars and the people who sell them.

As Tesla matured as a company and largely won its battles with the dealers, a whole new crop of EV startups tried to follow in its wake. While Tesla’s legal and political victories had made their job easier in some states, they had made it harder in other states where special legislative carve-outs for Tesla closed the door to other companies. Chapter 8 introduces the other companies fighting to sell their cars direct to consumers, and their unique angles on the importance of direct sales.

After thousands of Poles revolted against Russian rule in January 1863 – a critical moment during the American Civil War – many in the Union faced a moral and ideological dilemma. Should they be faithful to the traditional American sympathy for brave rebels against Old World monarchies? Or should they side with Imperial Russia, which many had long seen as the only friendly power in Europe? The debate in northern newspapers centered less on factual information than on questions of identity. Was autocratic Russia, as it brutally suppressed the Polish Insurrection, a barbaric empire unlike republican America? Or was Russia, like the United States, a Christian power, whose Tsar Alexander II emancipated its serfs shortly before President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation and who suppressed secession much as the North fought the South? Southern editors’ commentary also often revolved around issues of positioning, with sneering parallels drawn between “Alexander II and Abraham I” and analogies made between the struggles of Poland and the Confederacy – thus giving the same comparisons opposite meanings.

This chapter examines the shift from almost total estrangement in the early 1920s to broad enmeshment in cultural, economic, and finally diplomatic exchanges in the early 1930s. While acknowledging the importance of converging economic and strategic interests, the chapter argues that images and ideas were also significant, particularly in defining the identities and trajectories of the two countries. It illuminates the divergence between American anticommunists who loathed the atheist Soviet dictatorship and the growing number of intellectuals, journalists, African Americans, and others who became fascinated by the Soviet experiment in social and economic transformation. It also analyzes the ambivalence of Soviet writers, cartoonists, and political leaders about the United States, which they harshly criticized for its imperialism, racism, and economic exploitation, but also admired for its energy, productivity, and advanced technology. The chapter closes with a discussion of how President Franklin Roosevelt disregarded a terrible famine in Ukraine and protests by Ukrainian Americans as he negotiated for the establishment of diplomatic relations.

Each state has its own direct sales story, but none is richer than the one that played out in Michigan between 2014 and the present. Michigan pitted the power of the Detroit car companies, the United Auto Workers, and the politically active car dealers’ lobby against a California upstart supported by environmentalists, consumer rights organizations, and free market groups. The dealers got the upper hand in 2014 through legislative chicanery involving a single pronoun – “its” – but soon found that word games can backfire. Chapter 6 provides an inside account of the Tesla wars in the author’s own backyard.

This chapter examines the evolution of US–Russian relations from the establishment of diplomatic ties during the Napoleonic Wars through the 1840s, highlighting the complexities shaped by both international and domestic factors. Amid conflicts with France and Britain, American leaders navigated perceptions of the Russian Empire, using Russia as a lens to critique domestic political agendas. The chapter discusses how the early nineteenth-century uprisings, including the Decembrist and Polish rebellions, prompted both nations to evaluate their political ideologies and roles on the global stage, often reflecting mutual fears of foreign intervention. Despite initial goodwill and diplomatic engagement, notably through the 1832 Commercial Treaty and the appointment of Russian minister Bodisco, relations became strained due to the changing political landscape and US concerns over Russian expansionism. Ultimately, the chapter argues that the interplay of shared interests and political ambitions laid the groundwork for a nuanced relationship, illustrating how the two powers sought to navigate their identities and aspirations amid broader international shifts.

This chapter examines the evolution of US–Russia relations from 1901 to the crisis in 1903–1905, when Russia and the United States found themselves in geopolitical conflict in the Far East, the “tariff war” fueled tensions in economic interaction, ideology came to impact official Russia–US relations, and large numbers of Americans mobilized in an anti-Russian campaign following a brutal pogrom (riot) in 1903 in Kishinev. This event, as well as the American “crusade” for a free Russia that peaked during the Russian revolution of 1905–1907, stoked the existing geopolitical and ideological crisis. The chapter demonstrates that the explanation for both the Russian Empire’s and the United States’ ambitions in the Far East can be found in the interaction of their foreign and domestic policies and explores the new frame of mutual perceptions established under conditions of conflict and visualized in political cartoons. During the first crisis both countries’ earlier multiplicities of images of the Other came to be replaced by dichotomous visions of processes across the Atlantic and the desire to use the image of the Other as a “dark twin” for their own political purposes.

This chapter examines the complex evolution of US–Russian relations during the mid-19th century, highlighting a unique period marked by diplomatic engagement and technological collaboration. In the years preceding the American Civil War, both nations experienced mutual support, particularly as Russia backed the Union during the Civil War. While the popular “common foe” narrative attributes this friendship primarily to shared opposition to Great Britain, a more nuanced perspective reveals the significance of diplomatic interactions and technological exchanges in shaping their partnership. Key figures such as Alexander Bodisco and Thomas H. Seymour fostered goodwill, while Russia’s efforts to modernize its military infrastructure through American expertise solidified practical cooperation. The chapter further explores how territorial expansion in the United States aligned with Russia’s ambitions, and how debates over slavery and serfdom prompted comparative reflections on governance. Despite ideological differences, practical needs and mutual interests facilitated rapprochement, culminating in strengthened ties during the Civil War and setting the stage for future interactions.

The ten years between Joseph Stalin’s death and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy brought both dangerous crises and fitful steps toward an easing of superpower tensions. While this chapter describes the confrontations in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Berlin, Cuba, and elsewhere, it also emphasizes four breakthroughs toward coexistence and cooperation: the Geneva summit of 1955; the agreement on cultural exchanges in 1958; Nikita Khrushchev’s tour of the United States in 1959; and the conclusion of a partial test ban treaty in 1963. Such progress was delayed and complicated both by domestic political dynamics and by international rivalries in an era of accelerating decolonization and the fraying of the Sino-Soviet alliance. Yet perhaps most remarkable was how far top political leaders, journalists, scientists, musicians, dancers, and others were able to go to transcend ideological tensions and negative stereotypes through dialogue, negotiation, travel, and cultural exchange.

In Chapter 6, I examine George Schuyler’s 1928 serial “Chocolate Baby: A Story of Ambition, Deception, and Success,” which first appeared in the popular white-owned Black newspaper supplement the Illustrated Feature Section. In “Chocolate Baby,” Schuyler crafts his protagonist Martha Hastings as a sexually assertive version of the New Negro Woman modeled after increasingly popular light-skinned chorus girls. Schuyler, who had married a prominent white woman, depicts his New Negro male protagonist invoking the Mann Act against Martha’s “handsome and crafty” seducer, Gordon Johnson. Also known as the White-Slave Traffic Act of 1910, the Mann Act banned the interstate transportation of women “for the purpose of prostitution or debauchery, or for any other immoral purpose.” Rather than protecting all women regardless of skin color, the Act had been deployed to police consensual relationships between Black men and white women – most famously in the prosecution of boxer Jack Johnson. In a startling reversal of his cautionary tale, Schuyler turns from his warning about the sexual vulnerability and commodification of Black women whose passions hold sway, to arguably the most politically charged issue in the history of race relations, his endorsement of decriminalizing sexual unions between Black men and white women.