The Forging of Races: Race and Scripture in the Protestant Atlantic World, 1600 - 2000

by Colin Kidd

This book revolutionises our understanding of race. Building upon the insight that races are products of culture rather than biology, Colin Kidd demonstrates that the Bible - the key text in Western culture - has left a vivid imprint on modern racial theories and prejudices. Fixing his attention on the changing relationship between race and theology in the Protestant Atlantic world between 1600 and 2000 Kidd shows that, while the Bible itself is colour-blind, its interpreters have imported racial significance into the scriptures.

Kidd's study probes the theological anxieties which lurked behind the confident facade of of white racial supremacy in the age of empire and race slavery, as well as the ways in which racialist ideas left their mark upon new forms of religiosity. This is essential reading for anyone interested in the histories of race or religion.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Religion, Race

318 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Colin Craig Kidd, FBA, FRHistS, FSA Scot, FRSE, is a historian specialising in American and Scottish history. He is currently Professor of History at University of St. Andrews, after serving as Professor of Intellectual History and the History of Political Thought at Queen's University Belfast, where he has worked after leaving the University of Glasgow in 2010.

Reviews

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

A transformative book. It is thick, academic, and heady... but Kidd manages to gracefully navigate a mountain of documents spanning five centuries and make a compelling case for the myth of "race". I, for one, have been converted by this masterpiece. If you don't have time for the full weight of his argument at least read the first and last chapters.

[Harvey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just going through my old dissertation notes, and again I'm biased because I know Colin kidd is a brilliant professor. Polygenesis origins of race from Lord Kames are interesting on tracing the origins of racialism. I have difficulty and also most historians have difficulty in distinguishing racialism and racism and so this book goes through a very in depth exploration of narratives of race utilised by various people. He has quite a useful and succinct definition of each, mostly focused on non biological racial rhetoric as its all mostly pre darwinian. I loved the part on British Israelism the most. Curse of Ham is interesting, and all the various distinct explanations on race offered by groups that would eventually form a broader body incorporated into scientific racism. For those interested in enlightenment history this is great too as it covers elements of the conflict between the ancients and the moderns too.

[Shane Goodyear · Rating 4 out of 5]

Argument: that the bible is colour blind however is co-opted into racalist interpretations by whites to justify 19c racial science
Felt attacked by the new science of evolution
So defended the bible by saying their are diffrent strands of humanity
Lead to raciest Christian groups today kkk

Polygensis and Mono Genesis

The author suggests it was down to the Protestant culture of freely interpreting the bible that lead to this

He argues that raciest can co-opt anything into making racist arguments

However I still think it was the attack of the creation account that had a big part to play in these racist intetprations of the bible
Fixation on ethnology genologies of the bible

Who was descended from who
Curse of Ham- black people even though it was only for his son Canaan

This interpretation. Of the bible still has affects today

[K. G. Whitehurst · Rating 1 out of 5]

In many ways, this monograph is a terrible book even though it contains a great deal of useful information. Teasing out that information is damnably difficult,not least because Kidd does not present a properly organized narrative. Furthermore, he tries to bring far too much under the rubric of Protestantism--so wide an umbrella as to render the term useless. Sorry, Nation of Islam may have been influenced by American Protestantism, but it is manifestly NOT Protestantism. There are also points at which he conflates Protestantism with all of Christianity, which doesn't work either. He is correct in his assessment that Protestantism with its insistence on sola scripture, sola fidism, and priesthood of all believers ties itself up in knots over the issue of race (as defined by skin color); he is also correct that race is, from a biological standpoint, utter nonsense. What he tries and fails to do is chart a course of how we get from the beginnings of Protestantism to the current crop of right-wing racist & racialist nut jobs (without, of course, defining racist and racialist). And here's the worst part--his argument is so clearly teleological as to drive a reader insane. Nothing is inevitable, and nothing is a linear progression when discussing human history, nature, arrogance, and/or delusion.

[Katie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really like the idea, but would've made a better journal article than a book. Too much repetition.