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Attempts of nineteenth-century writers to establish “race” as a biological concept failed after Charles Darwin opened the door to a new world of knowledge. Yet this word already had a place in the organization of everyday life and in ordinary English language usage. This book explains how the idea of race became so important in the USA, generating conceptual confusion that can now be clarified. Developing an international approach, it reviews references to “race,” “racism,” and “ethnicity” in sociology, anthropology, philosophy, and comparative politics and identifies promising lines of research that may make it possible to supersede misleading notions of race in the social sciences.
“Banton’s s book is very thought-provoking: it made me think harder about the theoretical aspects of race and ethnicity than most books I have read recently on the topic. His willingness to challenge taken-for-granted theoretical stances is very bracing. There is also a lot of interesting information in this concise book, including material on the history of race and ethnicity studies that is highly relevant to understanding the field, but is often overlooked these days. His impressive mastery of the field gives readers a very informative and synthetic long and broad view, along with a coherent critique, which while it engages specialist academic also suits the book for an undergraduate audience.” • Anthropos
Introduction: The Paradox
Chapter 1. The Scientific Sources of the Paradox
- Two dimensions
- Taxonomy
- Typology
- Darwin and Mendel
- Two Vocabularies
- The Power of the Ordinary Language Construct
Chapter 2. The Political Sources of the Paradox
- Social Categories and Their Names
- After the Civil War
- Discrimination
- The ‘One-Drop’ Rule
- Counter Trends
Chapter 3. International Pragmatism
- The Racial Convention
- Implementing the Convention
- Other International Action
- Naming the Categories
Chapter 4. Sociological Knowledge
- Theoretical or Practical?
- The Chicago School
- In World Perspective
- Social Race?
Chapter 5. Conceptions of Racism
- Writing History
- Teaching Philosophy
- Teaching Sociology
- Sociological Textbooks
- Political Ends
Chapter 6. Ethnic Origin and Ethnicity
- Census categories
- Anthropology
- A New Reality?
- Nomenclature
- Sociobiology
- Ethnic Origin as a Social Sign
- Comparative Politics
- The Current Sociology of Ethnicity
Chapter 7. Collective Action
- The Rediscovery of Weber’s 1911 Notes
- Four Propositions
- Closure
- The Human Capital Variable
- The Colour Variable
- Ethnic Preferences
- Opening relationships
Conclusion: The Paradox Resolved
Select Bibliography
Index