Race: The History of an Idea in America - Paperback

by Thomas F. Gossett (Author)

2023 Reprint of the 1963 U.S. Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition and not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. "When Thomas Gossett's Race: The History of an Idea in America appeared in 1963, it explored the impact of race theory on American letters in a way that anticipated the investigation of race and culture being conducted today. Bold, rigorous, and broad in scope, Gossett's book quickly established itself as a critical resource to younger scholars seeking a candid, theoretically sophisticated treatment of race in American cultural history."-Oxford University Press Edition.

Gossett covers material from colonial race theory and its European antecedents, through eighteenth- and nineteenth- century race pseudoscience, to the racialist dimension of American thought and literature emerging against backgrounds such as Anglo-Saxonism, westward expansion, Social Darwinism, xenophobia, World War I, and modern racial theory.

Contents: Early race theories -- England's American colonies and race theories -- Eighteenth-century anthropology -- Nineteenth-century anthropology -- The Teutonic origins theory -- The study of language and literature -- Race and Social Darwinism -- The Social Gospel and race -- Literary naturalism and race -- The Indian in the nineteenth century -- The status of the Negro: 1865-1915 -- Anti-immigration agitation: 1865-1915 -- Imperialism and the Anglo-Saxon -- World War I and racism -- Racism in the 1920's -- The scientific revolt against racism -- The battle against prejudice.