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The Resource Race in North America : origin and evolution of a worldview, Audrey Smedley

Race in North America : origin and evolution of a worldview, Audrey Smedley

Creator
Summary
Few topics in the Western intellectual tradition have been subjected to as much scrutiny and analysis as the topic of race. In the eighteenth century, a prevailing belief in biologically exclusive and permanently unequal human groups, each with distinctive behavioral, moral, spiritual, and intellectual characteristics, led people to see biophysical and behavioral features as innate and immutable. In the nineteenth century, differences between whites, Indians, and Africans were magnified in the popular mind and in scholarly writings to the point that these groups were seen as separate species, justifying the preservation of "racial" slavery and the subsequent dehumanization of freed blacks. With the application in the late nineteenth century of the racial worldview to European peoples and the subsequent twentieth-century inhumanity and brutality of Nazi race ideology, the concept of race came under attack. Liberal ideology coupled with advances in science prompted criticism of "race" and efforts to eliminate the term from the lexicon of science. In a sweeping work that traces the idea of race through three centuries of North American history, Audrey Smedley shows race to be a cultural construct used variously and opportunistically throughout time, although the scientific record shows little common agreement on its meaning. Tracing the social and historical processes that helped shape the idea of race, Smedley argues that race was and is a folk worldview, fabricated as an existential reality out of elements of English cultural history and the conquest and enslavement of physically distinct populations. The schism between science and popular thought on race, which appeared in the mid-twentieth century, continues today. If progressive scientists no longer accept the biological idea of race, will society eventually also reject it?
Language
eng
Work
Publication
Extent
xii, 340 pages
Isbn
9780813306216
Instance
Label
Race in North America : origin and evolution of a worldview
Title
Race in North America
Title remainder
origin and evolution of a worldview
Statement of responsibility
Audrey Smedley
Creator
Subject
Genre
Language
eng
Summary
Few topics in the Western intellectual tradition have been subjected to as much scrutiny and analysis as the topic of race. In the eighteenth century, a prevailing belief in biologically exclusive and permanently unequal human groups, each with distinctive behavioral, moral, spiritual, and intellectual characteristics, led people to see biophysical and behavioral features as innate and immutable. In the nineteenth century, differences between whites, Indians, and Africans were magnified in the popular mind and in scholarly writings to the point that these groups were seen as separate species, justifying the preservation of "racial" slavery and the subsequent dehumanization of freed blacks. With the application in the late nineteenth century of the racial worldview to European peoples and the subsequent twentieth-century inhumanity and brutality of Nazi race ideology, the concept of race came under attack. Liberal ideology coupled with advances in science prompted criticism of "race" and efforts to eliminate the term from the lexicon of science. In a sweeping work that traces the idea of race through three centuries of North American history, Audrey Smedley shows race to be a cultural construct used variously and opportunistically throughout time, although the scientific record shows little common agreement on its meaning. Tracing the social and historical processes that helped shape the idea of race, Smedley argues that race was and is a folk worldview, fabricated as an existential reality out of elements of English cultural history and the conquest and enslavement of physically distinct populations. The schism between science and popular thought on race, which appeared in the mid-twentieth century, continues today. If progressive scientists no longer accept the biological idea of race, will society eventually also reject it?
Cataloging source
DLC
http://library.link/vocab/creatorName
Smedley, Audrey
Dewey number
305.8/009
Index
index present
LC call number
GN269
LC item number
.S63 1993
Literary form
non fiction
Nature of contents
bibliography
http://library.link/vocab/subjectName
  • Race
  • Racism
  • Black race
  • Slavery
  • Black race
  • Race
  • Racism
  • Slavery
Label
Race in North America : origin and evolution of a worldview, Audrey Smedley
Instantiates
Publication
Copyright
Bibliography note
Includes bibliographical references (pages 311-329) and index
Carrier category
volume
Carrier category code
  • nc
Carrier MARC source
rdacarrier
Content category
text
Content type code
  • txt
Content type MARC source
rdacontent
Control code
ocm26161951
Dimensions
24 cm
Extent
xii, 340 pages
Isbn
9780813306216
Lccn
92025269
Media category
unmediated
Media MARC source
rdamedia
Media type code
  • n
Label
Race in North America : origin and evolution of a worldview, Audrey Smedley
Publication
Copyright
Bibliography note
Includes bibliographical references (pages 311-329) and index
Carrier category
volume
Carrier category code
  • nc
Carrier MARC source
rdacarrier
Content category
text
Content type code
  • txt
Content type MARC source
rdacontent
Control code
ocm26161951
Dimensions
24 cm
Extent
xii, 340 pages
Isbn
9780813306216
Lccn
92025269
Media category
unmediated
Media MARC source
rdamedia
Media type code
  • n

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