The Racial Contract

Charles W Mills author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Cornell University Press

Published:15th Apr '22

Should be back in stock very soon

This paperback is available in another edition too:

The Racial Contract cover

The Racial Contract puts classic Western social contract theory, deadpan, to extraordinary radical use. With a sweeping look at the European expansionism and racism of the last five hundred years, Charles W. Mills demonstrates how this peculiar and unacknowledged "contract" has shaped a system of global European domination: how it brings into existence "whites" and "non-whites," full persons and sub-persons, how it influences white moral theory and moral psychology; and how this system is imposed on non-whites through ideological conditioning and violence. The Racial Contract argues that the society we live in is a continuing white supremacist state.

As this 25th anniversary edition—featuring a foreword by Tommy Shelbie and a new preface by the author—makes clear, the still-urgent The Racial Contract continues to inspire, provoke, and influence thinking about the intersection of the racist underpinnings of political philosophy.

Mills radically challenges us to reevaluate how we think about social contract theory, the concept of race, and the structure of our political systems. This is a very important book indeed.

* teaching philosophy *

Mills contends that the ground zero of Western democratic societies is not the mythical social contract that has prevailed among political philosophers but a 'racial contract.'

* THE NATION *

This book is a testament to Mills's expertise as a philosopher, a scholar, and a downright intelligent writer.

* Small Axe *

An important and timely reminder of the ways in which a philosophy which ignores race is bound up with the privileging of whiteness.

* Women's Philosophy Revi

ISBN: 9781501764288

Dimensions: 216mm x 140mm x 16mm

Weight: 454g

216 pages

25th Anniversary Edition