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In a sweeping work that traces the idea of race for more than three centuries, Audrey Smedley shows that "race" is a cultural invention that began to appear around the turn of the eighteenth century. In its origin, race was not a product of science but a folk ideology reflecting a new form of social stratification and a rationalization for inequality among the peoples of North America. This third edition incorporates recently published new source materials on the history of race ideology. Because "race" now has global manifestations, it also introduces the work of scholars who are examining the spread of race ideology cross-culturally. The new edition ofRace in North Americaalso looks more closely at the positions and arguments of contemporary race scientists. Although objective scientists have shown that any two humans are 99.9% alike genetically, race scientists maintain that the remaining difference of one-tenth of one percent is highly significant, accounting for many biological and behavioral differences that they assume to be hereditary. Race scientists contend, for example, that there are race differences in diseases and responses to medications, along with differences in intellect and in talent and ability in such fields as sports. Thus, they claim, race is a valid biological concept. Smedley argues that no amount of research into biological or genetic differences can help us understand the phenomenon of race in American society. Race can only be understood as a component of the sociocultural domain, not the domain of biology.

Preface to the Third Edition	p. ix
Introduction	p. 1
Notes	p. 11
Some Theoretical Considerations	p. 13
Race as a Modern Idea	p. 15
Ideas, Ideologies, and Worldviews	p. 17
The Social Reality of Race in America	p. 19
The Relationship Between Biology and Race	p. 22
The Primordialists' Argument	p. 23
Race as a Worldview: A Theoretical Perspective	p. 26
Race and Ethnicity: Biology and Culture	p. 30
Notes	p. 35
The Etymology of the Term "Race" in the English Language	p. 37
Note	p. 41
Antecedents of the Racial Worldview	p. 43
The Age of European Exploration	p. 43
The Rise of Capitalism and Transformation of English Society	p. 47
Social Organization and Values of Early Capitalism	p. 52
English Ethnocentrism and the Idea of the Savage	p. 55
English Nationalism and Social Values in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries	p. 64
Hereditary Social Identity: The Example of Catholic Spain	p. 67
Notes	p. 72
Growth of the English Ideology About Human Differences in America	p. 75
Earliest Contacts	p. 75
The Ensuing Conflicts	p. 80
The Backing of God and Other Justifications for Conquest	p. 83
The New Savages	p. 88
Notes	p. 92
The Arrival of Africans and Descent into Slavery	p. 95
The First Africans	p. 98
The Descent into Permanent Slavery	p. 100
Was There "Race" Before Slavery?	p. 104
Why the Preference for Africans?	p. 107
The Problem of Labor	p. 108
A Focus on Physical Differences and the Invention of Social Meanings	p. 115
Notes	p. 121
Comparing Slave Systems: The Significance of "Racial" Servitude	p. 123
The Background Literature and the Issues of Slavery	p. 124
The Nature of Slavery	p. 128
A Brief History of Old World Slavery	p. 129
Colonial Slavery Under the Spanish and Portuguese	p. 141
Uniqueness of the English Experience of Slavery	p. 147
The Significance of Slavery in the Creation of Race Ideology	p. 151
Notes	p. 155
The Rise of Science: Early Attempts to Classify Human Populations	p. 161
Questions, Issues, and Answers	p. 161
Early Classifications of Humankind	p. 167
The Impact of Eighteenth-Century Classifications	p. 173
Notes	p. 176
Late Eighteenth-Century Thought and the Crystallization of the Ideology of Race	p. 177
Social Values of the American Colonists	p. 179
Nature's Hierarchy	p. 183
Dominant Themes in North American Racial Beliefs	p. 191
Anglo-Saxonism: The Making of a Biological Myth	p. 194
Thomas Jefferson and the American Dilemma	p. 197
Notes	p. 206
Antislavery and the Entrenchment of a Racial Worldview	p. 209
A Brief History of Antislavery Thought	p. 210
The Proslavery Response	p. 220
Sociocultural Realities of Race and Slavery	p. 223
The Priority of Race over Class	p. 228
Notes	p. 233
A Different Order of Being: Nineteenth-Century Science and the Ideology of Race	p. 235
Polygeny Versus Monogeny: The Debate over Race and Species	p. 238
The Unnatural Mixture	p. 249
Scientific Race Ideology in the Judicial System	p. 250
White Supremacy	p. 255
Notes	p. 257
Science and the Growth and Expansion of Race Ideology	p. 259
The Power of Polygenist Thinking	p. 260
European Contributions to the ideology of Race	p. 262
The Measurement of Human Differences: Anthropometry	p. 267
Typological Models of Races	p. 271
The Dawn of Psychometrics	p. 273
Immigrants and the Extension of the Race Hierarchy	p. 276
Overseas Expansion of Race Ideology	p. 279
Notes	p. 281
Twentieth-Century Developments in Race Ideology	p. 283
Social Realities of the Racial Worldview	p. 284
Psychometrics: The Measuring of Human Worth by IQ	p. 288
The Eugenics Movement	p. 295
The Racial World of the Nazis	p. 298
The Continuing Influence of Racial Attitudes in Science	p. 300
Notes	p. 304
Changing Perspectives on Human Variation in Science	p. 305
Decline of the Idea of Race in Science: Early Views	p. 306
Early Physical Anthropology and Attempts to Transform the Meaning of Race	p. 309
The Development of Population Genetics	p. 316
The Scientific Debate over Race	p. 322
The Ecological Perspective: Human Variations as Products of Adaptation	p. 325
The Genetic Conception of Human Variation	p. 327
Monogeny Reconsidered	p. 328
Notes	p. 329
Dismantling the Folk Idea of Race: Transformations of an Ideology	p. 331
The Meaning and Legacy of Race as Identity	p. 333
The Future of the Racial Worldview	p. 343
The Persistence of Racial Thinking	p. 347
Notes	p. 352
References	p. 353
Index	p. 373
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Race in North America

0813343577

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