Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life

Author:   Barbara J. Fields ,  Karen E. Fields
Publisher:   Verso Books
ISBN:  

9781781683132


Pages:   310
Publication Date:   04 March 2014
Replaced By:   9781839765643
Format:   Paperback
Availability:   In Print   Availability explained
This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us.

Our Price $22.99 Quantity:  
Add to Cart

Share |

Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life


Add your own review!

Overview

Full Product Details

Author:   Barbara J. Fields ,  Karen E. Fields
Publisher:   Verso Books
Imprint:   Verso Books
Dimensions:   Width: 21.00cm , Height: 2.30cm , Length: 14.00cm
Weight:   0.408kg
ISBN:  

9781781683132


ISBN 10:   1781683131
Pages:   310
Publication Date:   04 March 2014
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Undergraduate ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Replaced By:   9781839765643
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print   Availability explained
This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us.

Table of Contents

Reviews

It's not just a challenge to racists, it's a challenge to people like me, it's a challenge to African-Americans who have accepted the fact of race and define themselves by the concept of race. --Ta-Nehisi Coates Demanding and intelligent. --Jennifer Vega, PopMatters These essays are extraordinary. I love the forceful elegance with which they hammer home that race is a monstrous fiction, racism is a monstrous crime. --Junot Diaz Karen E. Fields and Barbara J. Fields have undertaken a great untangling of how the chimerical concepts of race are pervasively and continuously reinvented and reemployed in this country. --Maria Bustillos, Los Angeles Review of Books The neologism 'racecraft' is modelled on 'witchcraft' ... It isn't that the Fieldses regard the commitment to race as a category as an irrational superstition. On the contrary, they are interested precisely in exploring its rationality--the role that beliefs about race play in structuring American society--while at the same time reminding us that those beliefs may be rational but they're not true. --Walter Benn Michaels, London Review of Books A most impressive work, tackling a demanding and important topic--the myth that we now live in a postracial society--in a novel, urgent, and compelling way. The authors dispel this myth by squarely addressing the paradox that racism is scientifically discredited but, like witchcraft before it, retains a social rationale in societies that remain highly unequal and averse to sufficiently critical engagement with their own history and traditions. --Robin Blackburn With examples ranging from the profound to the absurd--including, for instance, an imaginary interview with W E B Dubois and Emile Durkheim, as well as personal porch chats with the authors' grandmother--the Fields delve into racecraft's profound effect on American political, social and economic life. -- Global Journal This is as


A most impressive work, tackling a demanding and important topic--the myth that we now live in a postracial society--in a novel, urgent, and compelling way. The authors dispel this myth by squarely addressing the paradox that racism is scientifically discredited but, like witchcraft before it, retains a social rationale in societies that remain highly unequal and averse to sufficiently critical engagement with their own history and traditions. --Robin Blackburn


A most impressive work, tackling a demanding and important topic--the myth that we now live in a postracial society--in a novel, urgent, and compelling way. The authors dispel this myth by squarely addressing the paradox that racism is scientifically discredited but, like witchcraft before it, retains a social rationale in societies that remain highly unequal and averse to sufficiently critical engagement with their own history and traditions. --Robin Blackburn With examples ranging from the profound to the absurd--including, for instance, an imaginary interview with W.E.B. Dubois and Emile Durkheim, as well as personal porch chats with the authors' grandmother--the Fields delve into 'racecraft's' profound effect on American political, social and economic life. -- Global Journal This is a very thoughtful book, a very urgent book. -- The Academic & The Artist Cloudcast


A most impressive work, tackling a demanding and important topic - the myth that we now live in a postracial society - in a novel, urgent, and compelling way. The authors dispel this myth by squarely addressing the paradox that racism is scientifically discredited but, like witchcraft before it, retains a social rationale in societies that remain highly unequal and averse to sufficiently critical engagement with their own history and traditions. - Robin Blackburn With examples ranging from the profound to the absurd - including, for instance, an imaginary interview with W.E.B. Du Bois and Emile Durkheim, as well as personal porch chats with the authors' grandmother - the Fields delve into 'racecraft's' profound effect on American political, social and economic life. - Global Journal Karen E. Fields and Barbara J. Fields have undertaken a great untangling of how the chimerical concepts of race are pervasively and continuously reinvented and reemployed in this country. - Maria Bustillos, Los Angeles Review of Books The neologism 'racecraft' is modelled on 'witchcraft' - It isn't that the Fieldses regard the commitment to race as a category as an irrational superstition. On the contrary, they are interested precisely in exploring its rationality - the role that beliefs about race play in structuring American society - while at the same time reminding us that those beliefs may be rational but they're not true. - Walter Benn Michaels, London Review of Books It's not just a challenge to racists, it's a challenge to people like me, it's a challenge to African-Americans who have accepted the fact of race and define themselves by the concept of race. - Ta-Nehisi Coates Demanding and intelligent. - Jennifer Vega, PopMatters Racecraft forces a quite profound reconsideration of familiar categories, by navigating between what is real and what is made-up, and by deeply probing how economic inequality gets reproduced. It is impossible to read this rich book without being challenged and enlightened. - Ira Katznelson, Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time I love the simple elegance with which they hammer home that race is a montrous fiction, racism is a monstrous crime. - Junot Diaz, author of This is How You Lose Her This is a very thoughtful book, a very urgent book. - The Academic & The Artist Cloudcast


Author Information

BARBARA J. FIELDS is Professor of History at Columbia University, author of Slavery and Freedom on the Middle Ground: Maryland During the Nineteenth Century and coauthor of Free at Last: A Documentary History of Slavery, Freedom, and the Civil War. KAREN E. FIELDS, an independent scholar, holds degrees from Harvard University, Brandeis University, and the Sorbonne. She is the author of many articles and three published books: Revival and Rebellion in Colonial Central Africa, about millennarianism; Lemon Swamp and Other Places: A Carolina Memoir (with Mamie Garvin Fields), about life in the 20th-century South; and a retranslation of Emile Durkheim's masterpiece, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. She has two works in progress: Bordeaux's Africa, about the view of slavery from a European port city, and Race Matters in the American Academy.

Tab Content 6

Author Website:  

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

No review item found!

Add your own review!

Countries Available

All regions
Latest Reading Guide

Aorrng

Shopping Cart
Your cart is empty
Shopping cart
Mailing List