- Hardcover: 256 pages
- Publisher: Verso Books (1 Oct 2008)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1844672751
- ISBN-13: 978-1844672752
- Product Dimensions: 21.1 x 14.7 x 2.5 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,247,560 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Review
A staggering re-interpretation of the whole course of American history in which the skeletons in the closet walk abroad again. From genocide to massacre to lynching to the coded tongue of liberalism, the bankruptcy of white supremacy is found in the racialized structures maintained by the enclosures of incarceration and the foreclosures of impignoration. Read it, Obama, and weep! --Peter Linebaugh, author of the Magna Carta Manifesto
Product Description
In this absorbing chronicle of the role of race in US history, David R. Roediger explores how the idea of race was created and recreated from the 1600's to the present day. From the late seventeenth century - the era in which Du Bois located the emergence of 'whiteness' - through the American revolution and the emancipatory Civil War, to the civil rights movement and the emergence of the American empire, How Race Suvived US History reveals how race did far more than persist as an exception in a progressive national history. Roediger examines how race intersected all that was dynamic and progressive in US history, from democracy and economic development to migration and globalisation. Exploring the evidence that the USA will become a majority 'nonwhite' nation in the next fifty years, this masterful account shows how race remains at the heart of American life in the twenty-first century.
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3 reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Difficult history of race in the U.S.
20 Jun 2010
Format:Hardcover
In the course of any action, there has to be a reason. Roediger says the wealthy in England and the American colonies created the idea of white supremacy as the reason for slavery and taking the Indians' land away from them. He shows how that creation of white supremacy has not only persisted to this day but has been nurtured by United States law and culture for political and economic reasons. It is thoroughly depressing.
The book's major fault is its lengthy, serpentine sentences, some of which clearly got away from the editors as well as the author.
Its strength is negotiating 400 years of racial history in what is now the United States in 230 pages.
Roediger wears leftist politics on his sleeve which will prevent some from reading this, and will have others arguing with it at every paragraph. But his politics do not detract from and even service a concise, gimlet-eyed view of the flow of U.S. history regarding race relations.
Roediger concludes that the idea of white supremacy dreamed up centuries ago by entitled Englishmen to justify their brutality is so entwined and supported by current powerful economic and political interests that it will not go away for hundreds of years unless it is aggressively fought. In the age of Obama, this challenges conventional wisdom, just as the book challenges conventional U.S. histories.
The book's major fault is its lengthy, serpentine sentences, some of which clearly got away from the editors as well as the author.
Its strength is negotiating 400 years of racial history in what is now the United States in 230 pages.
Roediger wears leftist politics on his sleeve which will prevent some from reading this, and will have others arguing with it at every paragraph. But his politics do not detract from and even service a concise, gimlet-eyed view of the flow of U.S. history regarding race relations.
Roediger concludes that the idea of white supremacy dreamed up centuries ago by entitled Englishmen to justify their brutality is so entwined and supported by current powerful economic and political interests that it will not go away for hundreds of years unless it is aggressively fought. In the age of Obama, this challenges conventional wisdom, just as the book challenges conventional U.S. histories.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Creation of the very concept of race
25 July 2010
Format:Paperback
An excellent, well-researched book on how the very concept of race was created out of fiction as an integral part of American history, including the colonial period. The concept of the "white race" didn't just happen; it took lots of work. This is a fascinating report of the twisted convolutions of laws and the thoughts of leading politicians and philosophers that were required to justify the enslavement of Africans, the destruction of Native Americans culture (they just didn't work out as slaves), and the enthronement of Europeans as the supreme race, even though the privileged Europeans had a hard time figuring out whether the Irish, Italians, Jews, Poles, and others were "white" or not. I thought I knew a fair amount about the creation and maintenance of race in this country but this book synthesizes so much past and recent thinking about American history. Though only 230 pages, it's dense so allow yourself plenty of time to absorb it.
Great Book
2 Feb 2012
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
The book is insightful and well written. I would recommend it to anyone interested in race relations in the United States.
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