The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class (Haymarket) - Softcover

Roediger, David R

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1859842402 ISBN 13: 9781859842409

Publisher: Verso Books, 1999

Synopsis

Combining classical Marxism, psychoanalysis and the new labor history pioneered by E.P. Thompson and Herbert Gutman, David Roediger's widely acclaimed book provides an original study of the formative years of working class racism in the United States. This, he argues, cannot be explained simply with reference to economic advantage; rather, white working class racism is underpinned by a complex series of psychological and ideological mechanisms which reinforce racial stereotypes and thus help to forge the identities of white workers in opposition to blacks. In an afterword to this new edition, Roediger discussed recent studies of whiteness and the changing face of labor itself. He surveys criticism of his work, accepting many objections whilst challenging others, especially the view that the study of working class racism implies a rejection of Marxism and radical politics.

About this title

Review:

""At last an American labor historian realizes that white workers have a racial identity that matters as race matters to workers who are not white."" -- Nell Irvin Painter, Princeton University. "A Timely and important intervention I the current debates over 'race' and ethnicity." - Catherine Hall, New Left Review. ""Roediger's exciting book makes us understand what it means to see oneself as white in a new way. An extremely important and insightful book."" - Lawrence Glickman, The Nation. "The Celestine Prophesy of whiteness studies" - SPLN

About the Author:

David Roediger is Kendrick Babcock Chair of History at the University of Illinois. Among his books are Our Own Time: A History of American Labor and the Working Day (with Philip S. Foner), and Towards the Abolition of Whiteness. He is the editor of Fellow Worker: The Life of Fred Thompson, The North and Slavery and Black on White: Black Writers on What It Means to Be White as well as a new edition of Covington Hall's Labor Struggles in the Deep South. His articles have appeared in New Left Review, Against the Current, Radical History Review, History Workshop Journal, The Progressive and Tennis. His current research is on immigration and racial formation in the U.S.

About this edition

• Publisher: Verso Books
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 1859842402
• ISBN 13: 9781859842409
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 197