Synopses & Reviews
When the first Africans arrived in Virginia in 1619, there were no “white” people, nor, according to colonial records, would there be for another sixty years. In his seminal two-volume work,
The Invention of the White Race, Allen details the creation of the “white race” by the ruling class as a method of social control, in response to labor unrest precipitated by Bacon’s Rebellion. Distinguishing European Americans from African Americans within the laboring class, white privileges enforced the myth of the white race through the years and has been central to maintaining ruling-class domination over the entire working class.
Since publication in the mid-nineties, Invention has become indispensable in debates on the origins of racial oppression in America. Volume One utilizes Irish history to show the relativity of race and racial oppression as a form of social control. A new introduction by Jeffrey B. Perry discusses Allen’s contributions, critical reception and continuing importance.
Review
"A monumental study of the birth of racism in the American South which makes truly new and convincing points about one of the most critical problems in US history … a highly original and seminal work." David Roediger
Review
"A powerful and polemical study." Times Literary Supplement
Review
"A must read for all social justice activists, teachers, and scholars." Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, author of < i=""> Red Dirt: Growing Up Okie <>
Review
"Allen transforms the reader’s understanding of race and racial oppression from what mainstream history often portrays as an unfortunate sideshow in U.S. history, to a central feature in the construction of U.S. (and indeed global) capitalism. Allen destroys any notion that ‘race’ is a biological category but instead locates it in the realm of a construction aimed at oppression and social control. This is more than a look at history; it is a foundation for a path toward social justice." Bill Fletcher Jr., coauthor of < i=""> Solidarity Divided <>
Review
"Decades before people made careers ‘undoing racism,’ Ted Allen was working on this trailblazing study, which has become required reading." Noel Ignatiev, coeditor of < i=""> Race Traitor, author of How the Irish Became White <>
Review
"A real tour de force, a welcome return to empiricism in the subfield of race studies, and a timely reintroduction of class into the discourse on American exceptionalism." Times Higher Education Supplement
Review
"As magisterial and comprehensive as the day it was first published, Theodore Allen’s The Invention of the White Race continues to set the intellectual, analytical and rhetorical standard when it comes to understanding the real roots of white supremacy, its intrinsic connection to the class system, and the way in which persons committed to justice and equity might move society to a different reality." Tim Wise, author of < i=""> White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son <>
Review
"One of the most important books of U.S. history ever written. It illuminates the origins of the largest single obstacle to progressive change and working-class power in the U.S.: racism and white supremacy." Joe Berry, author of < i=""> Reclaiming the Ivory Tower <>
Review
"A must read for educators, scholars and social change activists – now more than ever! Ted Allen’s writings illuminate the centrality of how white supremacy continues to work in maintaining a powerless American working class." Tami Gold, director of < i=""> RFK in the Land of Apartheid <> and < i=""> My Country Occupied in Slave Plantation Societies <>
Review
"Few books are capable of carrying the profound weight of being deemed to be a classic – this is surely one. Indeed, if one has to read one book to provide a foundation for understanding the contemporary U.S. – read this one." Gerald Horne, author of < i=""> Negro Comrades of the Crown <>
Review
"A richly researched and highly suggestive analysis … Indispensable for readers interested in the disposition of power in Ireland, in the genesis of racial oppression in the U.S., or in the fluidity of ‘race’ and the historic vicissitudes of ‘whiteness.’" Choice
Review
"The most important book on the origin of racism in what was to become the United States – and more important now perhaps than when it was first released in the mid nineties." Gregory Meyerson, coeditor of < i=""> Cultural Logic <>
Review
"The Invention of the White Race is an important work for its meticulously researched materials and its insights into colonial history. Its themes and perspectives should be made available to all scholars … A classic without which no future American history will be written." Audrey Smedley, author of < i=""> Race in North America: Origin and Evolution of a Worldview <>
Synopsis
Groundbreaking analysis of the birth of racism in America.
Synopsis
Theodore W. Allen (1919–2005) was an anti–white supremacist, working-class intellectual and activist who began his pioneering work on “white skin privilege” and “white race” privilege in 1965. He co-authored the influential White Blindspot (1967), authored “Can White Workers Radicals Be Radicalized?” (1969), and wrote the ground-breaking Class Struggle and the Origin of Racial Slavery: The Invention of the White Race (1975) before publication of his seminal two-volume classic The Invention of the White Race (1994, 1997).
About the Author
Theodore W. Allen was an independent scholar, coalminer, mailhandler, engineering draftsman, teacher and librarian.