Richard Rothstein dismantles the myth that American residential segregation resulted from private choices and market forces, documenting instead how federal, state, and local governments deliberately created and maintained racial separation in housing. He traces specific policies: the Federal Housing Administration's refusal to insure mortgages in integrated neighborhoods, public housing constructed explicitly for racial separation, zoning laws that excluded Black families from white suburbs, government support for violent resistance to integration, and tax exemptions for institutions that practiced discrimination. Rothstein, a research associate at the Economic Policy Institute, builds his case through careful documentation of policy decisions and their effects, showing how each generation's segregation became the foundation for the next's. He examines case studies from across the country—San Francisco, Baltimore, Chicago, Louisville—demonstrating that similar patterns emerged wherever government acted. The book's legal implications are significant: if segregation resulted from private discrimination, current remedies may be limited; if it resulted from government action, constitutional obligations to remedy it may be substantial. Rothstein writes accessibly despite the legal and policy complexity, making his argument available to general readers while maintaining scholarly rigor. Readers will understand how the neighborhoods they inhabit came to look as they do, and why racial wealth gaps persist generations after formal discrimination ended. This is essential reading for understanding American housing, race, and what true integration would require.