Star Trek and History

An original and insightful exploration of a major component of contemporary American culture.

~H. Bruce Franklin, author ofWar Stars: The Superweapon and the American Imagination

Bernardi boldly goes where no scholar has gone before and discovers racial anxiety at the center of the Star Trek story. This careful reading of commercial culture's quintessential mega-text provides invaluable insight into how mass media productions help shape us into the people we are.

~George Lipsitz, author of Time Passages

Bernardi's thoughtful and provocative analysis of race in Star Trek is wholly original; it challenges viewers to see the series in a new light, and challenges its creators to be more mindful of the implicit messages in their work.

~RenT Echevarria, co-supervising producer, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Daniel Bernardi has dissected the history of a myth. If we are ever to track down and expose our semi-conscious racist evasions and dissemblings, we need more books like this one.

~Mike Budd, Florida Atlantic University

I would have sworn that there was little new any scholar could say about Star Trek. I was wrong. Bernardi opens up a rich new set of issues for scholarly examination, centering around the contradictory expression of race within the series and the fan culture that surrounds us. His analysis is bold, provocative, and challenging, yet consistently fair-minded. He combines a fan's detailed knowledge of the programÆs universe with the theoretical sophistication necessary to make this book a cutting-edge contribution to the cultural studies of race.

~Henry Jenkins, author of Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture