A monumental study of the birth of racism in the American South which makes truly new and convincing points about one of the most critical problems in US history ... a highly original and seminal work.”—David Roediger —Times Literary Supplement —Bill Fletcher Jr., coauthor of Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path Toward Social Justice —Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, author of Red Dirt: Growing Up Okie —Noel Ignatiev, coeditor of Race Traitor, author of How the Irish Became White tour de force , a welcome return to empiricism in the subfield of race studies, and a timely reintroduction of class into the discourse on American exceptionalism.”—Times Higher Education Supplement The Invention of the White Race continues to set the intellectual, analytical and rhetorical standard when it comes to understanding the real roots of white supremacy, its intrinsic connection to the class system, and the way in which persons committed to justice and equity might move society to a different reality.”—Tim Wise, author of White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son —Joe Berry, author of Reclaiming the Ivory Tower —Gene Bruskin, US Labor Against the War —Labor Studies Journal —Tami Gold, director of RFK in the Land of Apartheid and My Country Occupied in Slave Plantation Societies —Gerald Horne, author of Negro Comrades of the Crown —Choice The Invention of the White Race ’s contributions to the debates on notions of a ‘white race’ are unquestionable and its relevance not simply for scholars of American history but for those interested in notions of race and class in any historical and geographical setting is beyond doubt.”—Labour History Review —Metro Times Literary Quarterly —Gregory Meyerson, coeditor of Cultural Logic —Wilson J. Moses, author of The Golden Age of Black Nationalism —Bruce Nelson, author of Irish Nationalists and the Making of the Irish Race The Invention of the White Race is an important work for its meticulously researched materials and its insights into colonial history. Its themes and perspectives should be made available to all scholars ... A classic without which no future American history will be written.”—Audrey Smedley, author of Race in North America: Origin and Evolution of a Worldview —Freedom Road Magazine The Invention of the White Race: Racial Oppression and Social Control , Theodore W. Allen painstakingly sets out the historical precedents, the comparative case studies, the means to dissect threadbare explanations of contemporary racism, and then provides us with nimble heuristic devices to disentangle the snarled derivatives of the white supremacy ideology we face today.”—Edward H. Peeples, Ph.D., Associate Professor Emeritus at Virginia Commonwealth University, civil rights activist, and author of Twentieth Century Scalawag: A White Southerner’s Journey through Segregation to Human Rights Activism The Invention of the White Race ] will change your life and outlook forever. You simply can’t understand America and who we are without this book”—Carl Davidson, author of New Paths to Socialism The Invention of the White Race .”—Michael Goldfield, author of The Color of Politics: Race and the Mainsprings of American Politics —Journal of American Ethnic History —Charles L. Lumpkins, author of American Pogrom: The East St. Louis Race Riot and Black Politics —George N. Schmidt, editor of Substance News —Kim Scipes, Logos —Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, author of Social Control in Slave Plantation Societies —Joseph Wilson, co-author Race and Labor Matters in the New US Economy —Jonathan Scott, author of Socialist Joy in the Writings of Langston Hughes —Ethnic & Racial Studies —Ecumene —Virginia Magazine of History and Biography —Contemporary Sociology —Journal of American History —Tribune (London) The Invention of the White Race —is vital ammunition for those of us engaged in Revolutionary Change because his work helps to expose the current myth of a post-racial US society/world and reveal the underbelly of a dying capitalism’s hyper-racial world of violence, terror and human and natural exploitation.”—S.E. Anderson, author of The Black Holocaust for Beginners The Invention of the White Race has to be on your reading list.”—Will Shetterly, author of Dogland The Invention of the White Race . Allen’s provocative thesis—that the ‘white race’ was a category constructed to suppress class conflict—asks deep and troubling questions about the foundation of the United States and the intersection of race and class, while openly challenging the Left’s fundamental assumptions about social change in this country.”—Spencer Sunshine, assistant editor of Monthly Review
The Invention of the White Race is an important work for its meticulously researched materials and its insights into colonial history. Its themes and perspectives should be made available to all scholars … A classic without which no future American history will be written.
The most important book on the origin of racism in what was to become the United States – and more important now perhaps than when it was first released in the mid nineties.
A richly researched and highly suggestive analysis … Indispensable for readers interested in the disposition of power in Ireland, in the genesis of racial oppression in the U.S., or in the fluidity of ‘race’ and the historic vicissitudes of ‘whiteness.’
Few books are capable of carrying the profound weight of being deemed to be a classic – this is surely one. Indeed, if one has to read one book to provide a foundation for understanding the contemporary U.S. – read this one.
A must read for educators, scholars and social change activists – now more than ever! Ted Allen’s writings illuminate the centrality of how white supremacy continues to work in maintaining a powerless American working class.
One of the most important books of U.S. history ever written. It illuminates the origins of the largest single obstacle to progressive change and working-class power in the U.S.: racism and white supremacy.
As magisterial and comprehensive as the day it was first published, Theodore Allen’s The Invention of the White Race continues to set the intellectual, analytical and rhetorical standard when it comes to understanding the real roots of white supremacy, its intrinsic connection to the class system, and the way in which persons committed to justice and equity might move society to a different reality.
A real tour de force , a welcome return to empiricism in the subfield of race studies, and a timely reintroduction of class into the discourse on American exceptionalism.
Times Higher Education Supplement
Decades before people made careers ‘undoing racism,’ Ted Allen was working on this trailblazing study, which has become required reading.
Allen transforms the reader’s understanding of race and racial oppression from what mainstream history often portrays as an unfortunate sideshow in U.S. history, to a central feature in the construction of U.S. (and indeed global) capitalism. Allen destroys any notion that ‘race’ is a biological category but instead locates it in the realm of a construction aimed at oppression and social control. This is more than a look at history; it is a foundation for a path toward social justice.
A must read for all social justice activists, teachers, and scholars.
A monumental study of the birth of racism in the American South which makes truly new and convincing points about one of the most critical problems in US history … a highly original and seminal work.
A powerful and polemical study.
Times Literary Supplement
