Class and Race Formation in North America

Russell's meticulously researched and highly detailed book presents a critically important people's history of North America. For those interested in how class and race emerged and diverged among the three countries sharing this continent, this book provides rich insights and demonstrates the potential of comparative research to broaden our perspective. -- Dan Zuberi, University of British Columbia, author of Differences That Matter: Social Policy and the Working Poor in the United States and Canada ...a very important contribution to comparative studies of race and class. -- Richard Griswold del Castillo, Professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies, San Diego University This comprehensive analysis of North American societies should be read by anyone interested in making sense of current social issues. It illustrates, through an examination of class and race, that today's conditions are the result of choices made over the last 500 years and that building better social structures in each country remains a choice today and in the future. -- Carlos Salas, El Colegio de Tlaxcala

"Russell's meticulously researched and highly detailed book presents a critically important people's history of North America. It provides rich insights and demonstrates the potential of comparative research to broaden our perspective." - Dan Zuberi, University of British Columbia

On August 13, 1521, the largest and most developed of North America's societies, the Aztec empire, fell to Spanish invaders who, along with later European colonizers, built new societies in which they occupied the dominant class positions and forced Indians, imported African slaves, and Asians into subordinate positions. As a result of the conquest, race has become an enduring issue in the class structuring of North American societies.

Originally published as After the Fifth Sun: Class and Race in North America, this new, significantly expanded edition offers a comparative exploration of how patterns of class and racial inequality developed in the United States, Mexico, and Canada from colonial pasts to the beginning of the North American Free Trade Agreement and the post-NAFTA environment. What Russell reveals is a continent of diverse historical experiences, class systems, and ways of thinking about race.