Race : The History of an Idea in the West

by Hannaford, Ivan

• ISBN13: 9780801852237
• ISBN10: 0801852234
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1996-06-19
• Publisher: Johns Hopkins Univ Pr

Summary

In Race: The History of an Idea in the West Ivan Hannaford guides readers through a dangerous engagement with an idea that so permeates Western thinking that we expect to find it, active or dormant, as an organizing principle in all societies. But, Hannaford shows, race is not a universal idea -- not even in the West. It is an idea with a definite pedigree, and Hannaford traces that confused pedigree from Hesiod to the Holocaust and beyond.Hannaford begins by examining the ideas of race supposedly held in the ancient world, contrasting them with the complex social, philosophical, political, and scientific ideas actually held at the time. Through the medieval, Renaissance, and early modern periods he critically examines precursors in history, science, and philosophy. Hannaford distinguishes those cultures' ideas of social inclusion, rank, and role from modern ones based on race. But he also finds the first traces of the modern ideas of race in the proto-sciences of late medieval cabalism and hermeticism. Following that trail forward, he describes the establishment of the modern scientific and philosophical notions of race in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and shows how those notions became popular and pervasive, even among those who claim to be nonracist.At the same time, Hannaford sets out an alternative to a race-based notion of humanity. In his examination of ancient Greece, he finds in what was then a dazzling new idea, politics, a theory of how to bring a purposeful oneness to a society composed of diverse families, tribes, and interests. This idea of politics has a history, too, and its presence has waxed and waned through the ages.At a time when new controversies have again raised the question of whether race and social destiny are ineluctably joined as partners, Race: The History of an Idea in the West reveals that one of the partners is a phantom -- medieval astrology and physiognomy disguised by pseudoscientific thought. And Race raises a difficult practical question: What price do we place on our political traditions, institutions, and civic arrangements? This ambitious volume reexamines old questions in new ways that will stimulate a wide readership.

Author Biography

Ivan Hannaford was assistant director for academic affairs at Kingston University in England until his retirement in 1991. He has been a visiting fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge, and a Guest Scholar of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. Bernard Crick is professor emeritus of politics, University of London.

Table of Contents

Foreword	xi	(6)
BERNARD CRICK
Publisher's Note	xvii
I Western History and Thought before Race	3	(184)
1 In the Beginning	3	(14)
The Political Idea	10	(4)
The Idea of Race	14	(3)
2 The Ancient World	17	(44)
The Moral Science of Eunomics	20	(10)
Plato
Eunomia versus Eugenia	30	(13)
Aristotle
Eunomics and the Practice of Politics	43	(14)
Conclusion: Meaning and Method	57	(4)
3 Transitions from Greece to Rome	61	(26)
Greek Notions of Political Citizenship and the Practicalities of Roman Life	64	(8)
The Authority of Sense Impression	72	(4)
The Authority of Geography and Language	76	(4)
The Authority of the Historical Record	80	(3)
The Authority of Magic: Apuleius	83	(2)
Conclusion: Challenges to the Political Way	85	(2)
4 Jews, Christians, Moors, and Barbarians	87	(40)
The Rise of Faith	89	(11)
Purity of Blood and Expulsion	100	(25)
Conclusion: The Mark of Cain	125	(2)
5 Monsters and the Occult	127	(20)
The Secret Texts	128	(9)
The Spread of the Occult	137	(9)
Conclusion: New Divisions	146	(1)
6 New Methods, New Worlds, and the Search for Origins	147	(40)
The Old Political Order	149	(6)
A New Historical Methodology	155	(6)
Renaissance England and the Voyages of Discovery	161	(7)
Nobility and Race, Logic and Reason	168	(14)
Conclusion: The Idea of Race	182	(5)
II The Racialization of the West	187	(216)
7 The First Stage in the Development of an Idea of Race, 1684--1815	187	(48)
Analytical Foundations and the Germans in the Woods	191	(11)
The Emergence of Anthropology	202	(11)
National Character	213	(19)
Conclusion: From Populus to Volk	232	(3)
8 The Search for Historical and Biological Origins, 1815-1870	235	(42)
Race and History	236	(19)
Race and Natural History	255	(19)
Conclusion: Race Is In, Politics Is Out	274	(3)
9 The Rise of the Race-State and the Invention of Antisemitism, 1870-1900	277	(48)
The English Genius	278	(9)
The Franco-Prussian War: Scientific Explanations	287	(7)
The Franco-Prussian War and German History	294	(12)
The Synthesis of History and Philosophy	306	(9)
Antisemitism: A New Formative Force	315	(8)
Conclusion: From Race-State to Race War	323	(2)
10 Race is All, 1890-1939	325	(44)
The Roots of Nazism	326	(9)
Social Darwinism, Sociology, and Race Psychology	335	(6)
Race, Politics, and History	341	(7)
The Final Synthesis	348	(17)
Conclusion: The Final Solution	365	(4)
11 Reactions, Retractions, and New Orthodoxies, 1920 to the Present	369	(34)
The Counterhypotheses	370	(6)
The Orthodoxy of Modern Race Relations	376	(9)
Postwar Palliatives	385	(11)
Conclusion: Politics and Political Theory	396	(7)
Notes	403	(16)
Index	419