Race The History of an Idea in America

by Gossett, Thomas F.

• ISBN13: 9780195097788
• ISBN10: 0195097785
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1997-08-14
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

When Thomas Gossett's Race: The History of an Idea in America appeared in 1963, it explored the impact of race theory on American letters in a way that anticipated the investigation of race and culture being conducted today. Bold, rigorous, and broad in scope, Gossett's book quicklyestablished itself as a critical resource to younger scholars seeking a candid, theoretically sophisticated treatment of race in American cultural history. Here, reprinted without change, is Gossett's classic study, making available to a new generation of scholars a lucid, accessibly written volume that ranges from colonial race theory and its European antecedents, through eighteenth- and nineteenth- century race pseudoscience, to the racialistdimension of American thought and literature emerging against backgrounds such as Anglo- Saxonism, westward expansion, Social Darwinism, xenophobia, World War I, and modern racial theory. Featuring a new afterword by the author, an introduction by series editors Shelley Fisher Fishkin and Arnold Rampersad, and a bibliographic essay by Maghan Keita, this indispensable book, whose first edition helped change the way scholars discussed race, will richly reward scholars of AmericanStudies, American Literature, and African-American Studies.

Author Biography

Thomas F. Gossett is Professor Emeritus of English at Wake Forest University

Table of Contents

Early Race Theories	3	(14)
England's American Colonies and Race Theories	17	(15)
Eighteenth-Century Anthropology	32	(22)
Nineteenth-Century Anthropology	54	(30)
The Teutonic Origins Theory	84	(39)
The Study of Language and Literature	123	(21)
Race and Social Darwinism	144	(32)
The Social Gospel and Race	176	(22)
Literary Naturalism and Race	198	(30)
The Indian in the Nineteenth Century	228	(25)
The Status of the Negro: 1865--1915	253	(34)
Anti-Immigration Agitation: 1865--1915	287	(23)
Imperialism and the Anglo-Saxon	310	(29)
World War I and Racism	339	(31)
Racism in the 1920s	370	(39)
The Scientific Revolt Against Racism	409	(22)
The Battle Against Prejudice	431	(30)
Notes	461	(42)
Bibliography Essay	503	(8)
Index	511