Whos Black and Why? (Paperback)

Andrew S. Curran

ISBN 10: 0674295455 / ISBN 13: 9780674295452

Published by Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass, 2024

About this Item

Paperback. 2023 PROSE Award in European History "An invaluable historical example of the creation of a scientific conception of race that is unlikely to disappear anytime soon." -Washington Post "Reveals how prestigious natural scientists once sought physical explanations, in vain, for a social identity that continues to carry enormous significance to this day." -Nell Irvin Painter, author of The History of White People "A fascinating, if disturbing, window onto the origins of racism." -Publishers Weekly "To read [these essays] is to witness European intellectuals, in the age of the Atlantic slave trade, struggling, one after another, to justify atrocity." -Jill Lepore, author of These Truths: A History of the United States In 1739 Bordeaux's Royal Academy of Sciences announced a contest for the best essay on the sources of "blackness." What is the physical cause of blackness and African hair, and what is the cause of Black degeneration, the contest announcement asked. Sixteen essays, written in French and Latin, were ultimately dispatched from all over Europe. Documented on each page are European ideas about who is Black and why. Looming behind these essays is the fact that some four million Africans had been kidnapped and shipped across the Atlantic by the time the contest was announced. The essays themselves represent a broad range of opinions, which nonetheless circulate around a common theme: the search for a scientific understanding of the new concept of race. More important, they provide an indispensable record of the Enlightenment-era thinking that normalized the sale and enslavement of Black human beings. These never previously published documents survived the centuries tucked away in Bordeaux's municipal library. Translated into English and accompanied by a detailed introduction and headnotes written by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Andrew Curran, each essay included in this volume lays bare the origins of anti-Black racism and colorism in the West. In 1739 Bordeauxs Royal Academy of Sciences held an essay contest seeking answers to a pressing question: What was the cause of Africans black skin? Published here for the first time and translated into English, these early documents of scientific racism lay bare the Enlightenment origins of the phantom of racial hierarchy. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9780674295452

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Whos Black and Why? (Paperback)
• Publisher: Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass
• Publication Date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0674295455
• ISBN 13: 9780674295452
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

2023 PROSE Award in European History

“An invaluable historical example of the creation of a scientific conception of race that is unlikely to disappear anytime soon.”
―Washington Post

“Reveals how prestigious natural scientists once sought physical explanations, in vain, for a social identity that continues to carry enormous significance to this day.”
―Nell Irvin Painter, author of The History of White People

“A fascinating, if disturbing, window onto the origins of racism.”
―Publishers Weekly

“To read [these essays] is to witness European intellectuals, in the age of the Atlantic slave trade, struggling, one after another, to justify atrocity.”
―Jill Lepore, author of These Truths: A History of the United States

In 1739 Bordeaux’s Royal Academy of Sciences announced a contest for the best essay on the sources of “blackness.” What is the physical cause of blackness and African hair, and what is the cause of Black degeneration, the contest announcement asked. Sixteen essays, written in French and Latin, were ultimately dispatched from all over Europe. Documented on each page are European ideas about who is Black and why. Looming behind these essays is the fact that some four million Africans had been kidnapped and shipped across the Atlantic by the time the contest was announced.

The essays themselves represent a broad range of opinions, which nonetheless circulate around a common theme: the search for a scientific understanding of the new concept of race. More important, they provide an indispensable record of the Enlightenment-era thinking that normalized the sale and enslavement of Black human beings.

These never previously published documents survived the centuries tucked away in Bordeaux’s municipal library. Translated into English and accompanied by a detailed introduction and headnotes written by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Andrew Curran, each essay included in this volume lays bare the origins of anti-Black racism and colorism in the West.

About the Authors

Henry Louis Gates, Jr., is the author of numerous books and has written extensively on the history of race and anti-Black racism in the Enlightenment. His most recent works include Stony the Road and The Black Church. He is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University.

Andrew S. Curran is a leading specialist of the Enlightenment era and the author of The Anatomy of Blackness and Diderot and the Art of Thinking Freely. He is the William Armstrong Professor of the Humanities at Wesleyan University.