Book excerpt: Thomas Dixon, Jr. is best remembered as the author of the racist novels that served as the basis for D. W. Griffith's controversial 1915 classic film The Birth of a Nation. He also enjoyed great renown during his lifetime as a minister, lecturer, lawyer, and actor. In Thomas Dixon Jr. and the Birth of Modern America, distinguished scholars of religion, film, literature, music history and gender studies offer a provocative examination of Dixon's ideas, personal life and career and, in the process, illuminate the evolution of white racist ideas in the early twentieth century, and their legacy.