Race in North America: Origin and Evolution of a Worldview

by Smedley,Audrey

• ISBN13: 9780813345543
• ISBN10: 0813345545
• Edition: 4th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-07-26
• Publisher: INGRAM

Summary

In Race in North America, Audrey Smedley shows that #x1C;race#x1D; is a cultural invention that has been used variously and opportunistically since the eighteenth century. Race, in its origin, was not a product of science but of a folk ideology reflecting a new form of social stratification and a rationalization for inequality among the peoples of North America. New coauthor Brian Smedley joins Audrey Smedley in updating this renowned and groundbreaking text. The fourth edition includes a compelling new chapter on the health impacts of the racial worldview, as well as a thoroughly rewritten chapter that explores the election of Barack Obama and the evolving role of race in American political history. This edition also incorporates recent findings on the human genome and the implications of genomics. Drawing on new understandings of DNA expression, the authors scrutinize the positions of contemporary race scientists who maintain that race is a valid biological concept.

Author Biography

Audrey Smedley is professor emerita of anthropology and African American studies at Virginia Commonwealth University. Brian D. Smedley is vice president and director of the Health Policy Institute of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.

Table of Contents

Preface to the Fourth Edition	p. ix
Introduction	p. 1
Some Theoretical Considerations	p. 11
Race as a Modern Idea	p. 13
Ideas, Ideologies, and Worldviews	p. 15
The Social Reality of Race in America	p. 17
On the Relationship Between Biology and Race	p. 20
The Primordialists' Argument	p. 21
Race as a Worldview: A Theoretical Perspective	p. 24
Race and Ethnicity: Biology and Culture	p. 27
Notes	p. 33
The Etymology of the Term Race in the English Language	p. 35
Notes	p. 39
Antecedents of the Racial Worldview	p. 41
The Age of European Exploration	p. 41
The Rise of Capitalism and the Transformation of English Society	p. 45
Social Organization and Values of Early Capitalism	p. 50
English Ethnocentrism and the Idea of the Savage	p. 52
English Nationalism and Social Values in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries	p. 62
Hereditary Social Identity: The Lesson of Catholic Spain	p. 65
Notes	p. 70
The Growth of the English Ideology About Human Differences in America	p. 73
Earliest Contacts	p. 73
The Ensuing Conflicts	p. 78
The Backing of God and Other Justifications for Conquest	p. 81
The New Savages	p. 85
Notes	p. 90
The Arrival of Africans and Descent into Slavery	p. 93
The First Africans	p. 96
The Descent into Permanent Slavery	p. 98
Was There Race Before Slavery?	p. 102
Why the Preference for Africans?	p. 105
The Problem of Labor	p. 106
A Focus on Physical Differences and the Invention of Social Meanings	p. 113
Notes	p. 118
Comparing Slave Systems: The Significance of ôRacialö Servitude	p. 121
The Background Literature and the Issues of Slavery	p. 122
The Nature of Slavery	p. 126
A Brief History of Old World Slavery	p. 127
Colonial Slavery Under the Spanish and Portuguese	p. 139
Uniqueness of the English Experience of Slavery	p. 145
The Significance of Slavery in the Creation of Race Ideology	p. 149
Notes	p. 153
Eighteenth-Century Thought and the Crystallization of the Ideology of Race	p. 159
Social Values of the American Colonists	p. 160
Nature's Hierarchy	p. 164
Dominant Themes in North American Racial Beliefs	p. 171
Anglo-Saxonism: The Making of a Biological Myth	p. 173
And the American Dilemma	p. 177
Notes	p. 186
Antislavery and the Entrenchment of a Racial Worldview	p. 189
A Brief History of Antislavery Thought	p. 190
The Proslavery Response	p. 200
The Sociocultural Realities of Race and Slavery	p. 203
The Priority of Race over Class	p. 208
Notes	p. 211
The Rise of Science and Scientific Racism	p. 213
Early Classifications of Humankind	p. 217
The Impact of Eighteenth-Century Classifications	p. 222
Notes	p. 225
Growth of the Racial Worldview in Nineteenth-Century America	p. 227
Polygeny vs. Monogeny: The Debate over Race and Species	p. 229
The Unnatural Mixture	p. 237
Scientific Race Ideology in the Judicial System	p. 239
White Supremacy	p. 243
Immigrants and the Extension of the Race Hierarchy	p. 245
Notes	p. 248
Science and the Expansion of Race Ideology Beyond the United States	p. 251
The Continuing Power of Polygenist Thinking	p. 252
European Contributions to the Ideology of Race	p. 253
Herbert Spencer and the Rise of Social Darwinism	p. 256
The Measurement of Human Differences: Anthropometry	p. 259
Typological Models of Races	p. 261
The Measurement of Human Differences: Psychometrics	p. 262
Extension of Race Ideology Overseas	p. 265
Notes	p. 267
Twentieth-Century Developments in Race Ideology	p. 269
Social Realities of the Racial Worldview	p. 269
Psychometrics: The Measuring of Human Worth by IQ	p. 274
The Eugenics Movement	p. 280
The Racial World of the Nazis	p. 282
The Continuing Influence of Racial Ideology in Science	p. 285
Notes	p. 288
Changing Perspectives on Human Variation in Science	p. 289
The Decline of the Idea of Race as Biology in Science	p. 290
Physical Anthropology and Attempts to Transform the Meaning of Race	p. 292
Population Genetics	p. 296
Is There a Genetic Basis for Race?	p. 299
The Ecological Perspective: Human Variations as Products of Adaptation	p. 301
The Genetic Conception of Human Variation	p. 303
Monogeny Reconsidered: The Nonproblem of Race Mixture	p. 304
Notes	p. 305
Dismantling the Folk Idea of Race: Transformations of an Ideology	p. 307
The Meaning and Legacy of Race as Identity	p. 309
The Quest for a Mixed-Race Census Category	p. 316
Barack Obama and the Meaning of Race	p. 318
The Future of the Racial Worldview	p. 319
The Persistence of Racial Thinking	p. 323
Notes	p. 328
The Health and Other Consequences of the Racial Worldview	p. 331
The Extent of Racial Health Disparities in the United States	p. 331
The Causes of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities in the United States	p. 334
Conclusion	p. 348
Notes	p. 348
References	p. 351
Index	p. 371
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