Since pre-colonial days, North America has been both torn apart and united by love, sex and marriage across racial boundaries. Whether motivated by violent conquest, economics, lust or love, such unions have disturbed sacred beliefs and prejudices. This work aims to provide an historical foundation for contemporary discussion of a topic which, despite the numbers of marriages and children of mixed race, is still controversial. The contributors investigate why and how the spectre of sexual relations across racial boundaries has so threatened Americans of all colours and classes. Traversing centuries of American history, from liaisons among Indians, Europeans and Africans to 20th-century social scientists' fascination with sexual relations between "Orientals" and whites, the essays cover a range of regions, races, ethnicities and sexual orientations.