What do you think?
Rate this book
How Race Survived US History: From Settlement and Slavery to the Obama Phenomenon
In this absorbing chronicle of the role of race in US history, David R. Roediger explores how the idea of race was created and recreated from the 1600’s to the present day. From the late seventeenth century—the era in which DuBois located the emergence of “whiteness”—through the American revolution and the emancipatory Civil War, to the civil rights movement and the emergence of the American empire, How Race Survived US History reveals how race did far more than persist as an exception in a progressive national history. Roediger examines how race intersected all that was dynamic and progressive in US history, from democracy and economic development to migration and globalization.
Exploring the evidence that the USA will become a majority “nonwhite” nation in the next fifty years, this masterful account shows how race remains at the heart of American life in the twenty-first century.
Exploring the evidence that the USA will become a majority “nonwhite” nation in the next fifty years, this masterful account shows how race remains at the heart of American life in the twenty-first century.
240 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 2008
25 people are currently reading
644 people want to read
About the author
David R. Roediger
44 books115 followersDavid Roediger teaches history and African American Studies at the University of Kansas. He was born in southern Illinois and educated in public schools in that state, with a B.S. in Ed from Northern Illinois University. He completed a doctorate in History at Northwestern in 1979. Roediger has taught labor and Southern history at Northwestern, University of Missouri, University of Minnesota, and University of Illinois. He has also worked as an editor of the Frederick Douglass Papers at Yale University. He has written on U.S. movements for a shorter working day, on labor and poetry, on the history of radicalism, and on the racial identities of white workers and of immigrants. The former chair of the editorial committee of the Charles H. Kerr Company, the world's oldest radical publisher, he has been active in the surrealist movement, labor support and anti-racist organizing.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
October 21, 2021
This one took me awhile, but I learned a lot.
February 5, 2020
A beautifully condensed, compulsively readable and absolutely authoritative brief history of race and racism as a fundamental part of US political history. Roediger’s analysis is unflinchingly brutal but also never lacks for nuance, and even manages to spark a few moments of optimism amidst this infuriating narrative of white supremacy.
January 20, 2012
This was quite a brilliant look at how and why the idea of race has developed in the United States. I haven’t read Roediger before so I can’t really compare it to his previous work, but given it's written for a more popular audience, which I think is important, I did not mind the lack of footnotes. While it was reasonably short, I confess it took me a long time to get through and I’m not sure if that was because of the language or the weight of the ideas, but I didn’t regret a second.
It begins with a definition of race. For Roediger race is not a natural category, it is something new. It has been laboriously constructed to divide and sort people and thereby define how they relate to property, management, punishment and citizenship. The first of the two clearest examples of how this works is of course slavery, which took many different people of many different languages and cultures and defined them as black, as uncivilised and less than Europeans if not less than human, and only worthy of being slaves. The second is in the conquest and genocide of the Native Americans. Initially seen in the period of British rule as tribes with whom to ally with or fight against in the wars against other European powers, as a new nation began to create itself and push its boundaries they quickly became defined as red, as savages, as shiftless and lazy, and therefore worthy of being dispossessed of their lands. When they fought back? Jefferson himself argued shortly before his death that they be exterminated.
Through these stories we begin to come to grips with the two other key ideas about race contained in the book. The first is that of 'whiteness as property'. Skin colour comes to define almost everything about an individual: where they live and work, what they can aspire to, the texture of their everyday life. When all else fails you can still cling to whiteness to put yourself above other people. You are a citizen. You cannot be enslaved. You are better than others. Your skin colour has a value, whiteness comes to be worth something in itself, something that distinguishes you and puts you above others. There was a time before this was true, when indentured servants and slaves escaped together, when the mixing of races was voluntary rather than from the rape of slaves. Laws made of whiteness something to be defended: banning interracial marriage, penalizing indentured servants who run in the company of a non-white, ruling that children share the freedom or the servitude of their mother, ruling people of color less than human and non-citizens. It was a combination of enticement and terror, whites either acted to their own benefit by buying into it or were punished severely for its transgression.
On the opposite side you found a law in Barbados from 1668: "An Act declaring the Negro-Slaves of this Island to be Real Estates.”
The second point is based on Stuart Hall (who I love). As Roediger says of him, he “acutely points out that racism emerges and is recreated from the imperatives of new sets of realities, not just from the bad habits of the past” [xiii]. The first key is that there are imperatives that drive this social construction of race, such as the desire for free labor to develop open land, the greed for land and expansion both in terms of speculation and profit, and to vent the building anger of the working white classes who are not finding in America their promised prosperity and demanding free land while threatening revolution. The second: that these imperatives do not just happen in some past time and continue on through inertia or habit (though the weight of the past cannot be treated lightly). The key is that racism still exists because new imperatives exist to ensure that it does. Until we understand them, we cannot end racism.
In a nutshell: "White supremacy persisted not only by working against the forces of freedom, of openess, and of economic rationality in US history, but also by working through them. Such complexities complicate the verb 'survive' in this book's title, in that many of the forces pushing against the logic of racism at the same time validated, created, and recreated white supremacy." [xv]
He goes on to explore and draw out these ideas through American history, looking at 4 key points where racism could have ceased, but didn’t. In very simplified terms:
How did it survive a revolution? Because honestly, it’s a bit ingenuous to revolt in the name of ideals of liberty and self-determination against British oppression while you yourself hold slaves. This is the classic 'American dilemma', which Roediger argues to be false. The revolution was funded by slavery, and Du Bois noted that the Constitution was in fact a huge blow to the slave liberation movement, Roediger sums it up succinctly: "[the constitution] made even indentured whites (their race unnamed) into "free persons", it read Indians (who were named) out of citizenship, and it counted enslaved "other persons" (named neither racially nor in their servile position, by what one delegate called an "ashamed" constitutional convention) not as holders of political power, but as sources of such power for their own enslavers." [51] Thus America becomes a white man's country, welding together large and fractious class divisions through the imperative of expanding into indian territory and maintaining race status.
How did it survive capitalism? Because even the Marxists argued that race would dissolve in the crucible of the working class. But in fact capital thrives on having different groups of workers in a hierarchy and in competition with each other, and it became policy to play these groups off one another. And slavery was not some pre-capitalist formation, it grew up with capitalism.
How did it survive jubilee and the abolition of slavery? That was the moment there was the most hope...but "Jubilee did not collapse under the weight of internal contradictions, but under extended assault." The rise of the KKK, in one small town in Louisiana 60 republican party members were murdered during reconstruction. And then the fateful election where the Republicans gave up reconstruction all together and abandoned blacks to their fate for an uncontested election. Hayes almost certainly lost the popular vote, but he became president anyway.
How did it survive the immigration of those white Europeans most discriminated against? Through a process of coercion and aspiration and immense exploitation they slowly became accepted as white. In a sense they thus agreed to accept the rules of privilege rather than struggle against them.
And so it is still with us, Obama notwithstanding. The main point is "how unlikely it is that a force so longstanding, formative, and persistently recreated as white supremacy has been in United States history will be abolished by accident, as a result of the momentum of forces like capitalism or immigration that themselves have no anti-racist agenda." [xv] We have to actively fight it, and to do so we have to understand it. This book takes us a great deal of the way I think. It is very US specific, while the drama of race has played out globally (as has the US role) and yet none of that is connected here which I found an absence. But this is an important book.
It begins with a definition of race. For Roediger race is not a natural category, it is something new. It has been laboriously constructed to divide and sort people and thereby define how they relate to property, management, punishment and citizenship. The first of the two clearest examples of how this works is of course slavery, which took many different people of many different languages and cultures and defined them as black, as uncivilised and less than Europeans if not less than human, and only worthy of being slaves. The second is in the conquest and genocide of the Native Americans. Initially seen in the period of British rule as tribes with whom to ally with or fight against in the wars against other European powers, as a new nation began to create itself and push its boundaries they quickly became defined as red, as savages, as shiftless and lazy, and therefore worthy of being dispossessed of their lands. When they fought back? Jefferson himself argued shortly before his death that they be exterminated.
Through these stories we begin to come to grips with the two other key ideas about race contained in the book. The first is that of 'whiteness as property'. Skin colour comes to define almost everything about an individual: where they live and work, what they can aspire to, the texture of their everyday life. When all else fails you can still cling to whiteness to put yourself above other people. You are a citizen. You cannot be enslaved. You are better than others. Your skin colour has a value, whiteness comes to be worth something in itself, something that distinguishes you and puts you above others. There was a time before this was true, when indentured servants and slaves escaped together, when the mixing of races was voluntary rather than from the rape of slaves. Laws made of whiteness something to be defended: banning interracial marriage, penalizing indentured servants who run in the company of a non-white, ruling that children share the freedom or the servitude of their mother, ruling people of color less than human and non-citizens. It was a combination of enticement and terror, whites either acted to their own benefit by buying into it or were punished severely for its transgression.
On the opposite side you found a law in Barbados from 1668: "An Act declaring the Negro-Slaves of this Island to be Real Estates.”
The second point is based on Stuart Hall (who I love). As Roediger says of him, he “acutely points out that racism emerges and is recreated from the imperatives of new sets of realities, not just from the bad habits of the past” [xiii]. The first key is that there are imperatives that drive this social construction of race, such as the desire for free labor to develop open land, the greed for land and expansion both in terms of speculation and profit, and to vent the building anger of the working white classes who are not finding in America their promised prosperity and demanding free land while threatening revolution. The second: that these imperatives do not just happen in some past time and continue on through inertia or habit (though the weight of the past cannot be treated lightly). The key is that racism still exists because new imperatives exist to ensure that it does. Until we understand them, we cannot end racism.
In a nutshell: "White supremacy persisted not only by working against the forces of freedom, of openess, and of economic rationality in US history, but also by working through them. Such complexities complicate the verb 'survive' in this book's title, in that many of the forces pushing against the logic of racism at the same time validated, created, and recreated white supremacy." [xv]
He goes on to explore and draw out these ideas through American history, looking at 4 key points where racism could have ceased, but didn’t. In very simplified terms:
How did it survive a revolution? Because honestly, it’s a bit ingenuous to revolt in the name of ideals of liberty and self-determination against British oppression while you yourself hold slaves. This is the classic 'American dilemma', which Roediger argues to be false. The revolution was funded by slavery, and Du Bois noted that the Constitution was in fact a huge blow to the slave liberation movement, Roediger sums it up succinctly: "[the constitution] made even indentured whites (their race unnamed) into "free persons", it read Indians (who were named) out of citizenship, and it counted enslaved "other persons" (named neither racially nor in their servile position, by what one delegate called an "ashamed" constitutional convention) not as holders of political power, but as sources of such power for their own enslavers." [51] Thus America becomes a white man's country, welding together large and fractious class divisions through the imperative of expanding into indian territory and maintaining race status.
How did it survive capitalism? Because even the Marxists argued that race would dissolve in the crucible of the working class. But in fact capital thrives on having different groups of workers in a hierarchy and in competition with each other, and it became policy to play these groups off one another. And slavery was not some pre-capitalist formation, it grew up with capitalism.
How did it survive jubilee and the abolition of slavery? That was the moment there was the most hope...but "Jubilee did not collapse under the weight of internal contradictions, but under extended assault." The rise of the KKK, in one small town in Louisiana 60 republican party members were murdered during reconstruction. And then the fateful election where the Republicans gave up reconstruction all together and abandoned blacks to their fate for an uncontested election. Hayes almost certainly lost the popular vote, but he became president anyway.
How did it survive the immigration of those white Europeans most discriminated against? Through a process of coercion and aspiration and immense exploitation they slowly became accepted as white. In a sense they thus agreed to accept the rules of privilege rather than struggle against them.
And so it is still with us, Obama notwithstanding. The main point is "how unlikely it is that a force so longstanding, formative, and persistently recreated as white supremacy has been in United States history will be abolished by accident, as a result of the momentum of forces like capitalism or immigration that themselves have no anti-racist agenda." [xv] We have to actively fight it, and to do so we have to understand it. This book takes us a great deal of the way I think. It is very US specific, while the drama of race has played out globally (as has the US role) and yet none of that is connected here which I found an absence. But this is an important book.
September 6, 2020
Scholarly and impeccable, but also - save for the second edition's conclusion - quite dry, I'm afraid to say. Given the extensive reach but staccato form of writing, I found this was best read in short sections - chapter by chapter. As an overview, it is impressive; readers will want to turn to specialist histories after finding what areas they are most interested in through Roediger.
July 30, 2010
very good book. would be an excellent gift to a friend...it's classic and solid Roediger, i would suggest this over Wages of Whiteness, mainly because of it's discussion of the 20s-60s labor struggles.
August 24, 2015
Everyone needs to read this important historical piece! Especially people who support Trump and Trump himself!
April 23, 2021
Overall, How Race Survived U.S. History is a good book, and I do recommend it to those who are interested in learning more about the subject.
However, I have two issues with the writing/publication, which brought my rating down to 4 stars.
1) There were several times, especially in the first few chapters, where Roediger used what seemed to be intentionally confusing syntax. Grammar in writing exists as a way to ensure we can communicate as effectively as possible, and Roediger must have missed that memo. In the very least, he ignored it for the sake of including as much information in one sentence as possible. I took the most fault with his use (and disuse) of commas: there were at points absences of commas where they would be very beneficial, and at others an excess of commas in lieu of more useful alternatives. (Like, you know, just starting a new sentence.) In example, I give you a sentence from his introduction:
"Despite this, Obama supporters chanted 'RACE DOESN'T MATTER!' at his victory celebration in South Carolina, even as the national press, so euphoric a month previously, noted that in no non-caucus state had he exceeded 36% of the white vote, and in Democratic primaries at that."
While the writing did appear to improve in the later chapters (or perhaps I had grown used to deciphering his sentences), the first few chapters were difficult to read, and I almost put the book down for good.
2) The book doesn't contain a single footnote or citation. When I finish reading a work of nonfiction about a topic I am interested in, I use the footnotes to make a "to read" list. With How Race Survived U.S. History, I have to flip back through and skim the pages to find where he "cites" his sources by simply listing their names. I guess if I had known this prior to reading the book, I *could* have made the "to read" list as I read. . . or Roediger *could* have also just included footnotes.
However, I have two issues with the writing/publication, which brought my rating down to 4 stars.
1) There were several times, especially in the first few chapters, where Roediger used what seemed to be intentionally confusing syntax. Grammar in writing exists as a way to ensure we can communicate as effectively as possible, and Roediger must have missed that memo. In the very least, he ignored it for the sake of including as much information in one sentence as possible. I took the most fault with his use (and disuse) of commas: there were at points absences of commas where they would be very beneficial, and at others an excess of commas in lieu of more useful alternatives. (Like, you know, just starting a new sentence.) In example, I give you a sentence from his introduction:
"Despite this, Obama supporters chanted 'RACE DOESN'T MATTER!' at his victory celebration in South Carolina, even as the national press, so euphoric a month previously, noted that in no non-caucus state had he exceeded 36% of the white vote, and in Democratic primaries at that."
While the writing did appear to improve in the later chapters (or perhaps I had grown used to deciphering his sentences), the first few chapters were difficult to read, and I almost put the book down for good.
2) The book doesn't contain a single footnote or citation. When I finish reading a work of nonfiction about a topic I am interested in, I use the footnotes to make a "to read" list. With How Race Survived U.S. History, I have to flip back through and skim the pages to find where he "cites" his sources by simply listing their names. I guess if I had known this prior to reading the book, I *could* have made the "to read" list as I read. . . or Roediger *could* have also just included footnotes.
February 9, 2025
David R. Roediger's How Race Survived U.S. History is an excellent primer for anyone interested in exploring the conceptual, philosophical, economic, and governmental counters of race creation in the United States. While far from comprehensive, Roediger traces what is unique and familiar or common about the history of race as a construction (which is to say, for example, what it means to be "White" in relation to what it means to be "Black") in the United States. Roediger also effectively articulates the ways in which the United States government has fomented racial animous beyond the more overt examples, such as Southern slave states that eventually became the rebellious Confederacy. For instance, several sections from the book's second half describe government-sanctioned racist housing practices and policies in the mid-20th century.
October 2, 2020
The development, entrenchment, and perpetual recreation of race is the topic of this sweeping book. Author David Roediger discusses how race / racism has survived (thrived) in every single period of American history, from the settler colonial / enslavement period, through emancipation / reconstruction, through mass European immigration, through New Deal and 1960s liberalism, through the Obama "post-racial" and Trumpian era. In short, race is and has always been dependent on the socioeconomic imperatives of the ruling class, and as such, always has the incentive to reproduce itself to fit current needs. This is a gripping historical account of how race is central to America's founding, evolution, and present condition. Highly recommended.
May 22, 2023
Great summary of the history of the US in terms of racism.
I have been reading on the area for a while so think I had come across most of teh basic story here but this fleshes it out well with details i hadn't heard.
My only quibble with how good the book is is that it doesn't come with a bibliography so I haven't been turned onto any new specific texts by it.
I've just seen that i was directed to it by reading the 1619 Project. I do like having bibliographies to dig into. But this is really good and i am hearing that other works by the same author are worth looking into
I have been reading on the area for a while so think I had come across most of teh basic story here but this fleshes it out well with details i hadn't heard.
My only quibble with how good the book is is that it doesn't come with a bibliography so I haven't been turned onto any new specific texts by it.
I've just seen that i was directed to it by reading the 1619 Project. I do like having bibliographies to dig into. But this is really good and i am hearing that other works by the same author are worth looking into
March 8, 2021
learned a lot from this book but it was a pain in the arse to read, idk of my brain just wasn’t in it but I think it was kind of badly written ??? like sentences just did not connect on from each other sometimes and the grammar was confusing. anyway thought the earlier bit was really good and learned a lot about the early settlement / establishment of the U.S.
September 6, 2020
A few jabs at a figment Marxist orthodoxy that rests on a complete failure to understand the concept of 'abstract labor,' but otherwise the approach here is solid.
December 27, 2020
An intriguing look into the economic forces behind our most abominable tradition.
Want to read
January 5, 2021Recommended by Reading Globally leader
Academic read
Academic read
March 21, 2015
I cannot enforce enough that the accessibility of Roediger's writing added with the coherent lines he draws about the history of racial definition, capital, and nation-building makes this an absolute must read. It was almost uncanny. I wasn't learning any new history per se, but the articulation of that history was so profound. This book should be a mandatory AP history text in every high school in the country.
December 4, 2017
How Race Survived US History: From Settlement and Slavery to the Obama Phenomenon (Hardcover)
by David R. Roediger
see p 31-2 and 41-2
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in Americap106
by David R. Roediger
see p 31-2 and 41-2
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in Americap106
July 18, 2009
Mr. Roediger has condensed may stories and jammed them into one book, without any footnotes. So much evil has been done in the name of appeasing those who feel racially based fear and hatred. Plenty has been done out of pure spite. It's a very sad book to read, but very worthwhile.
August 27, 2011
More "popular" and less precise than Wages of Whiteness. A good general reading, but he's repeating some of what he's written elsewhere...
June 12, 2013
Despite its small size, this book is hard to get through and very dry. Unfortunately, I did not finish it.
March 10, 2010
Covers a lot of ground without becoming a mess. Great overview source.
Read
December 8, 2017323.1196 R712 2010
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews