Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Racism: A Short History by George Fredrickson ISBN: 0-691-11652-0 Publisher: Princeton University Press Pub. Date: 01 August, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.67 (3 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: Not a very good book
Comment: Beware of academics praising each other's work. This is a dull summary of "white supremacy" and "antisemitism." The author, while posing as a clinically disinterested party, lets us know how awful he thinks both of these things are.
He DOES say that "racism exists when one ethnic group or historical collectivity dominates, excludes, or seeks to eliminate another on the basis of differences that it believes are hereditary and unalterable."
This should comfort those who, for example, deplore the conditions in American inner cities, and attribute those conditions to the moral and cultural state of the residents of those cities. While some would call these people "racists," the definition shows that they are not -- unless, of course, those moral and cultural states are believed to be hereditary and unalterable.
Rating: 4
Summary: Thought-Provoking Overview
Comment: George Fredrickson is a Stanford history professor who has studied racism (particularly of the white supremacist variety) for many years. In this "Short History," he attempts a synthesis and comparison of much of what he has learned from his own work and that of others. An initial problem in tracing the history of "racism" is in deciding what exactly counts as "racism" -- for example, is the ancient prejudice against foreigners (barbarians) a kind of racism or simply xenophobia or ethnocentrism? Fredrickson excludes ancient examples on the ground that members of disfavored groups could (more or less) overcome these prejudices by adopting (assimilating) the dominant culture. One's status as Other was neither immutable nor (necessarily) heritable. An essential element of racism, in Fredrickson's view, is the belief that certain differences are tied to race, that those differences cannot be overcome by human action, *and* (most critically) that those differences have implications for how society ought to be structured (ranging from informal prejudice and discrimination against the disfavored group through legal segregation to exclusion/extermination).
Definition in hand, Fredrickson provides a fascinating overview of how religious prejudice (against Jews and heathens) gradually transformed (through different paths) into racial prejudice, and how racial prejudice became official policy in the American South of the Jim Crow era, Nazi Germany and apartheid South Africa. (European attitudes toward Native Americans are briefly explored, but then dropped without much development, and the eventual subjugation of Native Americans by the federal government is ignored completely, for reasons which are not apparent to me.) While pointing out significant differences between these three instances of racism, Fredrickson also draws some interesting parallels and contrasts. The role of international events and economic developments in first creating and then destroying these overtly racist regimes is explored in enough detail to make me want to read more.
Fredrickson provides the reader with a lot to think about, including the role of racism today, and whether "biological" racism is now being transformed into a kind of "culturism" that makes certain aspects of culture stand in for race. This is a book of "big thoughts" (as one might expect from a short history), and fulfills an important role in setting out a grand theory that others can respond to. The writing is clear, concise and readily intelligible to non-scholars. Fredrickson does not purport to provide any cures or even suggestions for eliminating current strains of this old disease, but like all good historians he identifies the symptoms and the conditions in which the disease flourishes. Highly recommended.
Rating: 5
Summary: Written with remarkable clarity
Comment: This book is certainly short only some 160 pages(the rest of the 200 is made up of foot notes) but it is written with a clarity that makes it a delight to read. The thesis of the book is that racism is something, which developed due to Western Europe?s relation with the Jews and Africans. In medieval times the failure of the Jews to convert to Christianity became to be seen as reflecting something malicious or evil rather than being a purely intellectual failing. It was something to do with the character or nature of the Jews themselves.
However racism took off in a big way in the 19th Century. The Enlightenment had made it possible to see mankind as a type of animal. In that animals had certain characteristics it became fashionable to attribute cultural differences in people to a biological cause. It became fashionable to characterise people who lives in Britain or Germany as members of the British or German race rather than as Britons or Germans. The poverty of other groups such as Africans was seen as a product of their racial breeding rather than being the result of their history and sociology. European universities developed departments that investigated the pseudo science of Eugenics or the study of the biological character of races.
Racism became something that was supported by the actions of states. Places such as Australia developed immigration policies to preserve the racial character of their state. In South Africa and America political systems, were developed aimed at subjugating blacks.
Germany brought about the end of racism as an accepted part of main stream policy by its crimes. One of the interesting facts raised in the book is that the Holocaust was Germany?s second tray at Genocide. In South West Africa it had been German policy to exterminate two of the main tribes. One tribe consisting of 60,000 people had 44,000 killed and the remaining 16,000 only survived by fleeing.
The end of the book suggests that while the Holocaust has sent racism into a decline as a state supported policy racism is not dead. In addition the world faces a new challenge with obnoxious doctrines similar to racism being framed in the language of religious fundamentalism.
 |
Title: The World Is a Ghetto by Howard Winant ISBN: 0465043410 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: June, 2002 List Price(USD): $21.00 |
 |
Title: The Anatomy of Racial Inequality by Glenn C. Loury ISBN: 0674012429 Publisher: Harvard University Press Pub. Date: 01 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
 |
Title: The Holocaust and the Christian World: Reflections on the Past, Challenges for the Future by Carol Rittner, Stephen D. Smith, Irena Steinfeldt, Yehuda Bauer ISBN: 0826412998 Publisher: Continuum International Publishing Group Pub. Date: 01 September, 2000 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
 |
Title: No Shame in My Game: The Working Poor in the Inner City by Katherine S. Newman ISBN: 0375703799 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 25 April, 2000 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
 |
Title: Colored White: Transcending the Racial Past by David R. Roediger ISBN: 0520240707 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: 01 November, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
