Racism: A Short History (Princeton Classics), by George M. Fredrickson
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Racism: A Short History (Princeton Classics), by George M. Fredrickson
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Are antisemitism and white supremacy manifestations of a general phenomenon? Why didn't racism appear in Europe before the fourteenth century, and why did it flourish as never before in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries? Why did the twentieth century see institutionalized racism in its most extreme forms? Why are egalitarian societies particularly susceptible to virulent racism? What do apartheid South Africa, Nazi Germany, and the American South under Jim Crow have in common? How did the Holocaust advance civil rights in the United States?
With a rare blend of learning, economy, and cutting insight, George Fredrickson surveys the history of Western racism from its emergence in the late Middle Ages to the present. Beginning with the medieval antisemitism that put Jews beyond the pale of humanity, he traces the spread of racist thinking in the wake of European expansionism and the beginnings of the African slave trade. And he examines how the Enlightenment and nineteenth-century romantic nationalism created a new intellectual context for debates over slavery and Jewish emancipation.
Fredrickson then makes the first sustained comparison between the color-coded racism of nineteenth-century America and the antisemitic racism that appeared in Germany around the same time. He finds similarity enough to justify the common label but also major differences in the nature and functions of the stereotypes invoked. The book concludes with a provocative account of the rise and decline of the twentieth century's overtly racist regimes--the Jim Crow South, Nazi Germany, and apartheid South Africa--in the context of world historical developments.
This illuminating work is the first to treat racism across such a sweep of history and geography. It is distinguished not only by its original comparison of modern racism's two most significant varieties--white supremacy and antisemitism--but also by its eminent readability.
Racism: A Short History (Princeton Classics), by George M. Fredrickson- Amazon Sales Rank: #649259 in eBooks
- Published on: 2015-09-15
- Released on: 2015-09-15
- Format: Kindle eBook
From Publishers Weekly An erudite comparison of racism and anti-Semitism throughout Western history, George M. Fredrickson's amazingly concise Racism: A Short History explains how medieval anti-Semitism influenced the racist rationalization of the African slave trade; shows how the Enlightenment and Romanticism opened up new avenues for thinking about Jews and slaves; and contrasts American Jim Crow laws, Nazi Germany's Aryan nation and South African apartheid. A U.S. history professor at Stanford and co-director of the Research Institute for the Comparative Study of Race and Ethnicity, Fredrickson offers a scholarly but compelling and accessible narrative. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal Amid the many books on the why's of racism comes a new analysis from Fredrickson (history, Stanford Univ.), author of several books on the history of racial ideologies, including The Arrogance of Race and Black Liberation. In this concise history, Fredrickson seeks to answer where and why racism began and what forms it has taken through the ages. Combining comparative, geographical, and historical perspectives, he studies the origin of Western racism from its emergence in the late Middle Ages to the present time. He begins by defining racism as a system that establishes a permanent racial hierarchy reflecting the laws of nature or decrees of God. Thus, stigmatized groups can never change their status and rise to a position of power within the dominant group. According to Fredrickson, this was first applied to Jews in the Middle Ages. Racism spread following European expansion and the African slave trade and grew during the Enlightenment. A particularly interesting insight is the comparison of the Jim Crow South, Nazi Germany, and apartheid South Africa. Both illuminating and distressing, this book is essential reading for anyone interested in understanding the evolution of one of the darkest sides of human nature. Recommended for informed readers in both public and academic libraries. Deborah Bigelow, Leonia P.L., NJ Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2003"In Racism: A Short History, written in . . . [Fredrickson's] characteristically crisp, clear prose, he draws both on a wide range of recent work by others and on nearly half a century of his own writings on immigration, race and nationalism, in the United States and elsewhere, to provide us with a masterly--though not uncontroversial--synthesis. . . . The book is worth reading just for its pathbreaking attempt to tell the stories of anti-Semitism and white supremacy together, while insisting both on their inter-connections and their differences."--Kwame Anthony Appiah, The New York Times Book Review"Fredrickson deftly combines intellectual with social and political history to explain the emergence of racism and its recent decline. Learned and elegant."--William H. McNeill, The New York Review of Books"Fredrickson [stands] out from a number of distinguished collegues [because of] his continuing urge to widen the comparative framework he uses to try to understand why these relations have developed as they did. Racism: A Short History is his most drastic venture to date--a brisk positioning of Southern racial domination within world history as a whole."--John Dunn, Times Literary Supplement"An erudite comparison of racism and anti-Semitism throughout Western history. . . . Fredrickson offers a scholarly but compelling and accessible narrative."--Publishers Weekly"Fredrickson's book should be celebrated. The chief reason is the text itself. One of only a handful of attempts to cover Western attitudes towards race comprehensively, Fredrickson's Racism is by far the most concise and lucid. It is also the most balanced. . . . [W]hat ultimately makes Fredrickson's book so valuable is its original vision of the major racisms--its view of them as belonging to a coherent historical narrative. . . . Reviewers often apply the term 'path-breaking' to works that simply trim back a few errant branches. But Fredrickson's book really is path-breaking."--Paul Reitter, The Nation"In this incisive and thoughtful essay on the nature and historical trajectory of racism in the modern world, Fredrickson's magisterial command of his subject is on display as he provides a concise overview of racism's rise, climax, and retreat."--Choice"Racism, in short, comes with a history, and it is to scrutinize racism's history and reasoning that Fredrickson decided to write this brisk, intense, incisive probe of the concept and its implications. The result is the best, most erudite introduction to racism available."--Carlin Romano, Philadelphia Inquirer"Racism: A Short History is a tour de force within this genre. Richly footnoted and elegantly written, the book is a model of clarity and sophisticated analysis."--Milton Shain, Kleio
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38 of 40 people found the following review helpful. Thought-Provoking Overview By A Customer 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.
31 of 35 people found the following review helpful. Written with remarkable clarity By Tom Munro 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.
29 of 37 people found the following review helpful. Institutional Racism is more than three states (focus on Africa) By Mark Summers George Frederickson stated in Racism: A Short History, that racism reached its peak in the twentieth century with the rise of three "over, racist regimes". Frederickson's three overt racist regimes were the U.S. South during the "Jim Crow era", Nazi Germany, and the apartheid government of South Africa (Frederickson, p. 99). He chose these states because they effectively enforced racism through the mechanisms of the state rather than through custom. Frederickson's criteria included regimes that bureaucratized a racial ideology, codified racism by law, excluded "other" groups from power, and forced those excluded groups into poverty (Frederickson, p. 100). While Frederickson acknowledged the racist ideologies of European colonial regimes during the "scramble" for Africa, he did not refer to those states as "overtly racist" because they allowed native elites to have some access to power. Frederickson viewed World War Two and the Cold War as key components in the dismantling of overt racism worldwide, the decolonization of Africa (and Asia), and the dismantling of the apartheid regime of South Africa. While Frederickson acknowledged that subtle racism continues, he argued that overtly racist regimes have become extinct in the twenty-first century. Throughout Racism: A Short History, Frederickson used simplistic arguments and showed a misunderstanding of the complexities of ethnic strife to write a short book which packaged the "greatest hits" of racism. Too often, Frederickson failed to differentiate between institutional racism; racism enforced by the state, and basic racism; in which individuals commit acts of hatred against those that are different. Frederickson also viewed racism as simply a white western phenomenon and failed to consider that racist regimes have been ruled by European, African, and Asian peoples. While the most famous racist regimes have been in the context of white domination over darker skinned peoples, Frederickson failed to account for racist acts committed by other ethnicities. A cursory study of twentieth and twenty-first century Africa will show that Frederickson's list of overt racist regimes should be expanded, and that racism is far more complex than the author's analysis.South Africa was not the only overt white minority regime in twentieth century Africa. In 1965, Ian Smith and other white nationalists declared unilateral independence from Great Britain as the southern half of Rhodesia seceded to become the Republic of Rhodesia. Rhodesia, like South Africa, was a white led regime which excluded blacks from power, land, and high sector jobs, which caused native Africans to suffer. This regime, lasted until 1979 when pressure from Britain and the United States, UN economic sanctions, and an African insurgency caused the white nationalist republic to fall. Robert Mugabe took control of a new Zimbabwe nation and reached an agreement that allowed white Rhodesians, the business and agricultural elite of the nation, to stay. While some white Rhodesians, known as "Rhodies", fled the country, many whites, called "Zimbos", stayed and became Zimbabweans. Since 1980, Mugabe's policies of land seizures have forced many white farmers from their land. British and African newspapers have documented Mugabe's policies as "racist". Many whites who chose to remain African and farm have been welcomed by states such as Zambia, Mozambique, Malawi, and Nigeria. The case of Zimbabwe as a black racist state is not an argument to deny the overt racism of white Africans in Rhodesia, but to caution the optimism of Frederickson's analysis of South Africa. Many of the elite Rhodesians who ran the farms that exploited black workers fled the nation decades ago. The remaining white Zimbabweans are often those who have tried to integrate into a black led society or who were too poor to emigrate. Those whites most guilty of constructing the white racist regime of the past have escaped retribution, while those whites with less means have witnessed acts of violence and economic oppression against them. Likewise, in South Africa, Frederickson placed more blame on white Afrikaners , white South Africans whose largely Dutch ancestors immigrated to South Africa in the 17th century, than on British white South Africans. Frederickson correctly analyzed the racist motivations of many Afrikaners as they established apartheid in 1910 and 1948 (Frederickson, p. 117, 132). Afrikaners operated under a "never again" mindset as they blamed the British and their African tribal allies (such as the Zulus) for their defeat in the Boer War in 1902. Frederickson however, failed to document the atrocities committed against the Afrikaners by the British government. While he made a connection between the Nazis and the South African state, he failed to mention the British concentration camp policies which killed thousands of Afrikaners as an example of ethnic cleansing and an influence on Nazi Germany. While Nelson Mandela provided over a peaceful multi-racial transition to power as apartheid fell in South Africa, Fredrickson failed to note that Mandela's successors have been less successful integrating the country. Anti-white farmer violence committed by radical ANC elements and the rise of white neo-Nazi style Afrikaner militia groups spell Zimbabwe like problems for South Africa if racial reconciliation continues to regress. Frederickson also failed to account for numerous acts of racism committed against Africans and Asians by those of African descent. He briefly mentioned the ouster of Asians by Idi Amin in Uganda in 1979 but discounted that act as overtly racist. Frederickson also failed to account for the ethnic violence and murders of African religious and ethnic minorities in nations such as Nigeria, Rwanda, and Sudan. These acts have also echoed the regime of Nazi Germany and showed that genocide and overt state led racial hatred did not end with the victory over fascism in World War II. This ethnic violence is both black led and a legacy of European states which drew boundaries across ethnic lines in order to divide and conquer native African peoples.Another missed opportunity for Frederickson was an analysis of the history of Liberia. Liberia was founded as a series of six colonies by white American colonization societies as a homeland for emancipated slaves. Liberia declared its independence in 1849 and established an American style constitutional government. Americo-Liberians, the descendents of the freed slaves, made up, and continue to make up, less than 5% of the nation's population. Yet Americo-Liberians ran the nation as an elite class, holding power until 1980. Native Africans were excluded from power and prevented from organizing rival parties by a regime led by American descended blacks. These Americo-Liberians were often lighter-skinned than their neighbors and adopted white Southern American customs. The Americo-Liberians churches, plantation style homes, agricultural practices, missionary zeal, attire and attitudes reflected the culture of the white plantation owners of Dixie. Liberia is a strange case of black institutional racism against other blacks.Frederickson should be commended for attempting to write a short history of such a difficult topic. But perhaps racism is one topic than cannot be touched on so lightly. Racism like a cancer has eaten at the world for centuries. But like a cancer in remission, it has the potential always to return. Racism and even overt racism, is more complex than the history of South Africa, the US South, and Nazi Germany. It is more complicated than the traditional narrative of a white elite's domination of black peoples. It has destroyed Africa and continues to divide its peoples (of all colors) today. Were racism as short and simple as Frederickson made it out to be, it truly can be said to be a problem that has been largely solved. Sadly today's television, newspaper, and internet news coverage, tells a much different story.
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