| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 92.2

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 92.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

American Racist: The Life and Films of Thomas Dixon. By Anthony Slide. (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2004. x, 242 pp. $35.00, ISBN 0-8131-2328-3.)
Anthony Slide's American Racist addresses the experiences and writings of Thomas Dixon Jr., one of America's most notorious racists. A lawyer, writer, and minister, Dixon is the author of numerous novels and plays, including The Clansman (1905), a tribute to the birth of the Ku Klux Klan and the basis for D. W. Griffith's film The Birth of a Nation (1915). Dixon was also involved with the production of eighteen films, including most notably The Fall of a Nation (1916). Yet it is not Dixon's literary and cinematic skills that make him worthy of a book-length study. He is not considered to be a particularly talented writer or filmmaker. It is his impact on a generation of readers and moviegoers that makes him an important figure in American history. He was, in Slide's words, "a spokesman for his generation of Southerners" (p. 4).	1
Dixon's career warrants greater scholarly attention, and American Racist is an initial step toward that goal. As Jane Gaines, author of several important works on race in American film, notes on the back cover of Slide's book: The sheer amount of new information, from reviews of The Birth of a Nation to the background on Dixon's attempts to continue producing films on his own, makes the case for looking closer at Dixon. (Gaines) Students in film studies, American literature, ethnic studies, and southern studies will find value in Slide's book.	. . .

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