This sweeping work traces the idea of race for more than three centuries to show that 'race' is not a product of science but a cultural invention that has been used variously and opportunistically since the eighteenth century. Updated throughout, the fourth edition of this renowned text 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 its implications for the meaning of race in America and the future of our racial ideology.

Table of Contents:
PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION Introduction 1. Some Theoretical Considerations Race as a Modern Idea Ideas, Ideologies, and Worldviews The Social Reality of Race in America On the Relationship Between Biology and Race The Primordialists' Argument Race as a Worldview: A Theoretical Perspective Race and Ethnicity: Biology and Culture Notes 2. The Etymology of the Term Race in the English Language Notes 3. Antecedents of the Racial Worldview The Age of European Exploration The Rise of Capitalism and the Transformation of English Society Social Organization and Values of Early Capitalism English Ethnocentrism and the Idea of the Savage English Nationalism and Social Values in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries Hereditary Social Identity: The Lesson of Catholic Spain Notes 4. The Growth of the English Ideology About Human Differences in America Earliest Contacts The Ensuing Conflicts The Backing of God and Other Justifications for Conquest The New Savages Notes 5. The Arrival of Africans and Descent into Slavery The First Africans The Descent into Permanent Slavery Was There Race Before Slavery? Why the Preference for Africans? The Problem of Labor A Focus on Physical Differences and the Invention of Social Meanings Notes 6. Comparing Slave Systems: The Significance of "Racial" Servitude The Background Literature and the Issues of Slavery The Nature of Slavery A Brief History of Old World Slavery Colonial Slavery Under the Spanish and Portuguese Uniqueness of the English Experience of Slavery The Significance of Slavery in the Creation of Race Ideology Notes 7. Eighteenth-Century Thought and the Crystallization of the Ideology of Race Social Values of the American Colonists Nature's Hierarchy Dominant Themes in North American Racial Beliefs Anglo-Saxonism: The Making of a Biological Myth Thomas Jefferson and the American Dilemma Notes 8. Antislavery and the Entrenchment of a Racial Worldview A Brief History of Antislavery Thought The Proslavery Response The Sociocult