Drawing from the earliest chapters in US history, legal scholar Sheryll Cashin reveals the enduring legacy of America's transformation from a country without an entrenched construction of race to a nation obsessed with racial purity. Cashin argues that over the course of the last four centuries, and especially in the 50 years since the Loving v. Virginia Supreme Court case that legalized interracial marriage, ardent integrators who dare to love and marry across color lines have contributed to the development of more culturally dexterous whites and people of color. Loving is both a history of white supremacy, and a hopeful treatise on the future of race relations in America.