Race: The History of an Idea in America

Race and American Culture

by Thomas F. Gossett

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 quickly established 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 racialist dimension 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 American Studies, American Literature, and African-American Studies.

Genres: History, Race

544 pages, Paperback

First published November 30, 1962

Reviews

[Hanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating and well-written. Completely changes the conversation of race.

[Ahmed Guebbouh]

A very interesting book. Its deep insights about race as an ideology and construct in America has really inspired me.

[LA · Rating 3 out of 5]

HIST 8980: Hawes: Thematic Readings; Fall 2005.

[Kaela Winder · Rating 3 out of 5]

The information was great but it was a boring read.