Research Catalog

The invention of the white race

Title: The invention of the white race / Theodore W. Allen.
Author: Allen, Theodore (Theodore W.)
Publication: London ; New York : Verso, 1994-1997.

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Status	Vol/Date	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan How do I pick up this item and when will it be ready?	vol.2	Text	Use in library	E185 .A44 1993 vol.2	Off-site
Request for On-site Use Request Scan How do I pick up this item and when will it be ready?	vol.1	Text	Use in library	E185 .A44 1993 vol.1	Off-site

Details

Description

2 volumes; 24 cm

Summary

Argues that before the 18th century, there was neither a white nor any other colour-determined race in North America. Allen traces the history of plantations and slavery to show that it was the degradation of African-bonded labourers into slaves that produced racism based on colour.
"When the first Africans arrived in Virginia in 1619, there were no "white" people there. Nor, according to colonial records, would there be for another sixty years. In this seminal two-volume work, The Invention of the White Race, Theodore W. Allen tells the story of how America's ruling classes created the category of the "white race" as a means of social control. Since that early invention, white privileges have enforced the myth of racial superiority, and that fact has been central to maintaining ruling-class domination over ordinary working people of all colors throughout American history. Volume I draws lessons from Irish history, comparing British rule in Ireland with the "white" oppression of Native Americans and African Americans. Allen details how Irish immigrants fleeing persecution learned to spread racial oppression in their adoptive country as part of white America."
"In Volume II of The Invention of the White Race, Theodore W. Allen explores the transformation that turned African bond-laborers into slaves and segregated them from their fellow proletarians of European origin. In response to labor unrest, where solidarities were not determined by skin color, the plantation bourgeoisie sought to construct a buffer of poor whites, whose new racial identity would protect them from the enslavement visited upon African Americans. This was the invention of the white race, an act of cruel ingenuity that haunts America to this day"--Publisher's description.

Uniform Title

Haymarket series.

Subjects

Genre/Form

History

Bibliography (note)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

v. 1. Racial oppression and social control -- v. 2. The origin of racial oppression in Anglo-America

ISBN

0860914801
9780860914808
1859849814
9781859849811
086091660X
9780860916604
1859840760
9781859840764

LCCN

93036787

OCLC

ocm29185303
29185303
SCSB-14396972

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library