<Begin Segment 14>

TI: Who came up with the title of the book The Politics of Prejudice?

RD: By the way, it had been used, not as a title of a book, but as a subtitle. I found that out after I used it, but you can't copyright a title. And it's in Barnhart's book as a subtitle. And then the rest of it is a horror, The Politics of Prejudice... how does it go? It goes on forever, the subtitle. But you can do that with an academic book. This originally came out in a university monograph, which was really a gray, dull thing. And by the way, what you got, in those days, there was no signed contract, you got fifty-three copies, that was it. But it was a calling card.

BN: So no royalties at all.

RD: No. And then thanks to some friends of mine who were well-connected, arranged for a paperback version. They had to go to the Press to get permission, and I think the Press took some of it, but I got royalties on that. And then I discovered accidentally that after that and before the paperback was out, that they had allowed a small book publisher, reprint publisher, to publish a hardback version without telling me or giving me any money about it, and they eventually did that after I caught 'em. But it delayed the paperback edition for a while because that had just come out in the paper. My publisher was a very ethnical man, said, "If I bring this out now, that publisher won't sell any books at all, because he's marketing that at a higher price, and I'm marketing this much more attractive thing. And then eventually under different management, University of California Press, after the rights drew out for the other thing, they put out an edition. And then at some anniversary, they put out a -- although there was no difference in the text -- they put out a special commemorative edition which was very nice, and all of which I got royalties on. But I've never submitted another manuscript to the University of California Press.

BN: And that, I guess it had the desired effect of getting you out of...

RD: Oh, yeah. And I was very lucky. It got reviewed in the right place, the American Historical Review, about this much type. In very, very rapid time, it was a small book and it's well-written, easy to read. And the first sentence contains the phrase: "written with clarity, accuracy and grace." An absolute rave review. Some people thought I was far too partial. Couple of the reviews were obviously written by people who still had reservations about citizenship for "those people." But in general, I've been very fortunate in my reviews. They're good books, but good books don't always get good reviews, and I've been -- with a few exceptions, and never by anybody who amounted to anything -- I've had very, very good reviews from some of the top people in the country. And I just got one, not a review, but a blurb, unsolicited by me, from David Kohl, who is the leading legal opponent of Bush and Obama's policies at Guantanamo and elsewhere. And it's just a rave, this is for the new book. Just an absolute rave review that'll do me a lot of good. He's a distinguished professor of law at Georgetown University and one of the most... and most of the blurbs come from your friends or your colleagues and they've got to be taken cum grano salis. Except for his books, I've never seen him or heard of him. I mean, I've seen him, I know who he is, I've read his books, but I've never met him personally or had anything personal to do with or asked him to do it. So that it seems to be that much, the music seems to be that much sweeter.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2013 Densho. All Rights Reserved.