Synopses & Reviews
In Race in North America, Audrey Smedley shows that “race” is a cultural invention that has been used variously and opportunistically since the eighteenth century. Race, in its origin, was not a product of science but of a folk ideology reflecting a new form of social stratification and a rationalization for inequality among the peoples of North America.New coauthor Brian Smedley joins Audrey Smedley in updating this renowned and groundbreaking text. The fourth edition includes a compelling new chapter on the health impacts of the racial worldview, as well as a thoroughly rewritten chapter that explores the election of Barack Obama and the evolving role of race in American political history. This edition also incorporates recent findings on the human genome and the implications of genomics. Drawing on new understandings of DNA expression, the authors scrutinize the positions of contemporary race scientists who maintain that race is a valid biological concept.
Review
In this fourth edition, Drs. Audrey Smedley and Brian Smedley describe, in a scholarly but widely accessible and engaging manner, the evolution of the concept of race and the way shifting views of the meaning of race have shaped North America. The book is an essential resource for anyone interested in the past, present, and future of race and race relations in North America.”
—John F. Dovidio, Yale University
Race in North America is an essential text for anyone who engages race from the early modern period to the present. …Eminently suitable for a range of learners, from undergraduates to researchers, the book is critical to courses and writings on the ways in which race has been, and continues to be, socially constructed in the Anglo world.”
—Laura A. Lewis, James Madison University
This much anticipated new edition continues the global exploration of the roots of race and racism and reveals how structural racism maintains disparities in the modern age. Followers of the epistemology of race and racism will get a historically broader and detailed explanation of why we think about groups of people the way we do today.”
—Janis Hutchinson, University of Houston
Race in North America provides an excellent historical overview of how race came to be such a powerful social construct in the United States, and its continued significance in the life outcomes of people of color today. While grounded in research, the book is written in a manner that is well-suited for the casual reader as well as students and scholars interested in the subject of race.”
—Maria-Elena Diaz, The University of Oklahoma
Praise for Previous Editions:
I am absolutely devoted to this book. Over the years my students have often commented on how much it has changed their thinking and opened their eyes.”
—Robyn Rosen, professor of history, Marist College
Synopsis
Revision of a bestselling cultural anthropology text.
Synopsis
A sweeping work examining the evolution of “race” in the past three centuries as a cultural invention rationalizing inequality among the peoples of North America
Synopsis
This sweeping work traces the idea of race for more than three centuries to show that race” is not a product of science but a cultural invention that has been used variously and opportunistically since the eighteenth century. Updated throughout, the fourth edition of this renowned text includes a compelling new chapter on the health impacts of the racial worldview, as well as a thoroughly rewritten chapter that explores the election of Barack Obama and its implications for the meaning of race in America and the future of our racial ideology.
About the Author
Audrey Smedley is professor emerita of anthropology and African American studies at Virginia Commonwealth University. She is the author of several books as well as the American Anthropology Association’s position paper on race.
Brian D. Smedley holds a Ph.D. in psychology from UCLA. He is research director and cofounder of The Opportunity Agenda, a communications, research, and advocacy organization dedicated to expanding opportunity for all.
Table of Contents
PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION
Introduction
1. Some Theoretical Considerations
Race as a Modern Idea
Ideas, Ideologies, and Worldviews
The Social Reality of Race in America
On the Relationship Between Biology and Race
The Primordialists Argument
Race as a Worldview: A Theoretical Perspective
Race and Ethnicity: Biology and Culture
Notes
2. The Etymology of the Term Race in the English Language
Notes
3. Antecedents of the Racial Worldview
The Age of European Exploration
The Rise of Capitalism and the Transformation of English Society
Social Organization and Values of Early Capitalism
English Ethnocentrism and the Idea of the Savage
English Nationalism and Social Values in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
Hereditary Social Identity: The Lesson of Catholic Spain
Notes
4. The Growth of the English Ideology About Human Differences in America
Earliest Contacts
The Ensuing Conflicts
The Backing of God and Other Justifications for Conquest
The New Savages
Notes
5. The Arrival of Africans and Descent into Slavery
The First Africans
The Descent into Permanent Slavery
Was There Race Before Slavery?
Why the Preference for Africans?
The Problem of Labor
A Focus on Physical Differences and the Invention of Social Meanings
Notes
6. Comparing Slave Systems: The Significance of Racial” Servitude
The Background Literature and the Issues of Slavery
The Nature of Slavery
A Brief History of Old World Slavery
Colonial Slavery Under the Spanish and Portuguese
Uniqueness of the English Experience of Slavery
The Significance of Slavery in the Creation of Race Ideology
Notes
7. Eighteenth-Century Thought and the Crystallization of the Ideology of Race
Social Values of the American Colonists
Natures Hierarchy
Dominant Themes in North American Racial Beliefs
Anglo-Saxonism: The Making of a Biological Myth
Thomas Jefferson and the American Dilemma
Notes
8. Antislavery and the Entrenchment of a Racial Worldview
A Brief History of Antislavery Thought
The Proslavery Response
The Sociocultural Realities of Race and Slavery
The Priority of Race over Class
Notes
9. The Rise of Science and Scientific Racism
Early Classifications of Humankind
The Impact of Eighteenth-Century Classifications
Notes
10. Growth of the Racial Worldview in Nineteenth-Century America
Polygeny vs. Monogeny: The Debate over Race and Species
The Unnatural Mixture
Scientific Race Ideology in the Judicial System
White Supremacy
Immigrants and the Extension of the Race Hierarchy
Notes
11. Science and the Expansion of Race Ideology Beyond the United States
The Continuing Power of Polygenist Thinking
European Contributions to the Ideology of Race
Herbert Spencer and the Rise of Social Darwinism
The Measurement of Human Differences: Anthropometry
Typological Models of Races
The Measurement of Human Differences: Psychometrics
Extension of Race Ideology Overseas
Notes
12. Twentieth-Century Developments in Race Ideology
Social Realities of the Racial Worldview
Psychometrics: The Measuring of Human Worth by IQ
The Eugenics Movement
The Racial World of the Nazis
The Continuing Influence of Racial Ideology in Science
Notes
13. Changing Perspectives on Human Variation in Science
The Decline of the Idea of Race as Biology in Science
Physical Anthropology and Attempts to Transform the Meaning of Race
Population Genetics
Is There a Genetic Basis for Race?
The Ecological Perspective: Human Variations as Products of Adaptation
The Genetic Conception of Human Variation
Monogeny Reconsidered: The Nonproblem of Race Mixture
Notes
14. Dismantling the Folk Idea of Race: Transformations of an Ideology
The Meaning and Legacy of Race as Identity
The Quest for a Mixed-Race Census Category
Barack Obama and the Meaning of Race
The Future of the Racial Worldview
The Persistence of Racial Thinking
Notes
15. The Health and Other Consequences of the Racial Worldview
The Extent of Racial Health Disparities in the United States
The Causes of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities in the United States
Conclusion
Notes
REFERENCES
INDEX