A Cultural History of Race

Each volume, despite their unique content and editorial flourish, offers the same nine identical chapter titles and topics: “definitions and representations of race”; “race, environment, culture”; “race and religion”; “race and science”; “race and politics”; “race and ethnicity”; “race and gender”; “race and sexuality”, and; “anti-race”. This simple and elegant decision helps to synchronize the volumes, allowing for ease of topical comparison and transforming otherwise discordant chronicles into “useable pasts”. * Ethical and Racial Studies *
The detailed, deep and comparative historicization of racial thinking is a very much needed and timely project: much writing about race is temporally and geographically focused and, in its wide-ranging ambitions, this Cultural History of Race represents a very welcome alternative. The use of a common chapter structure throughout the six volumes is a very valuable feature, which makes it easy for readers to follow particular themes, while the multidisciplinary approach is also highly attractive when dealing with a subject as mercurial as race. * Peter Wade, Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Manchester, UK *
Learning from the past is a necessary act of cultural advancement and A Cultural History of Race, a project of sustained historical inquiry from Antiquity to the present, makes a much-needed and exquisitely timely contribution. It argues for rigor and depth of exploration through nine recurring categories of inquiry across the six volumes and challenges the notion of a restrictive timeline of the ‘history of race’ as the product of modernity. It transcends temporal and geographic limits while expanding our understanding of the variant and shifting terminologies of race. As a result, readers will appreciate the breadth of material and value highly the intellectual diversity of the project’s multidisciplinary approach * Ian Smith, Richard and Joan Sell Professor of the Humanities, Lafayette College, USA *
Marius Turda, the eminent cultural historian of science and racialization is the general editor for this foundational six-volume study attuned to this 'moment of global reckoning' sparked by #BlackLivesMatter and Indigenous justice movements. This is an outstanding critical, nuanced, useful, anti-racist cartography from European 'Antiquity' through the 'Renaissance,' into colonial 'Empire' formations and state eugenics practices through the racially-coded high tech, big data 'Genomic Age.' Epic and often brilliant, we become painfully aware of how narrow nationalist and nation-bounded scholarship are so painfully limited in contrast to this masterful, satellite counter mapping. Yes, racism and contesting this degeneration of humans and the natural world is a deeply embedded history and of the moment, it's relational and intersectional, and it has infected all trans-regional cultural discourses. A must for all academic and public libraries - five stars!" * John Kuo Wei Tchen, Clement A. Price Professor of Public History & Humanities, Rutgers-Newark University,USA *
In a contemporary moment afflicted by concocted culture wars that are also proxy race wars, this important collection of essays does what is urgently needed - by explicating the concept of race in a historical frame. Between them, these volumes show how concepts of ‘race’ and ‘an impressive racial edifice’ emerged in the West over several centuries, and became such a powerful political, scientific and cultural force. An important contribution to the historical literacy that is needed if we are to challenge race and racism effectively. * Priyamvada Gopal, Professor of Postcolonial Studies, University of Cambridge, UK *
A Cultural History of Race is an admirably ambitious survey of the cultural landscape of race and racism. Analysing the concept of race all the way from antiquity, and drawing in research from every relevant discipline, it paints a story of how difficult it has been for humans to grapple with the idea of human difference. Clarifying and comprehensive, it is sure to become necessary reading for every scholar who wants to understand what race means. It couldn't have more contemporary relevance either. Truly outstanding. * Angela Saini, Author of Superior: The Return of Race Science (2019) *
A Cultural History of Race stands on a league of its own within the broad domain of race studies. This splendid, thoughtful array of essays by scholars in a truly diverse number of fields offers an unprecedented, kaleidoscopic panorama of the myriad permutations of race and racism in the West – from Greek and Roman antiquity all the way to the ages of the Genome and Black Lives Matter. The contributors to this collection exemplify just how fresh and engaging historical insight is when we as scholars remain fully engaged with the pressing issues of our own time. As a whole, this collection of essays forcefully delivers important lessons for a broad readership: first, race, racism and human rights advocacy itself are transhistorical phenomena reaching back to the foundational moments of Western civilization. Second, any truly critical history of race and racism requires an honest scrutiny of the manner in which our own fields of knowledge have been shaped by troubled legacies. And, most urgently, the identification of multiple forms of stigmatization, discrimination and persecution in our times – ­not to mention the quest for social justice – can hugely benefit from a rich reckoning of the multiplicity of situated forces that have shaped overt and systemic racism to this day. A Cultural History of Race will remain obligatory reference for generations of readers. * Nicolás Wey Gómez, author of The Tropics of Empire: Why Columbus Sailed South to the Indies (2008) *

In this moment of global racial reckoning, there is a tectonic shift underway. As a more structural, systemic, and historical analysis of race and racialization is emerging, A Cultural History of Race, will be an important accelerant to this process. The pivot from a focus on identity towards one that more critically considers processes and patterns of identification is a process, one that takes time, sustained engagement and a nuanced understanding of the past and its relationship to the present. A Cultural History of Race is just such a text. Its recent completion will be a gift to scholars, activists, the human rights community, and others invested in a more just future, one that doesn’t posit certain people or for that matter species as disposable; there is no such thing!

The time has come for us to embrace this reality and work towards a world in which this eliminationist ideology no longer governs our political, social, economic or philosophical spaces. A Cultural History of Race will prove to be a trusted companion and a useful tool for the long journey ahead and will certainly stake a claim to being a cornerstone text for the pivot that is underway.

* Milton Reynolds, Educator, Author, Diversity Equity Inclusion Practitioner, Critical Race Theorist *