Illustrations Introduction 1. Salvaging a Shipwrecked World 2. Bleeding the Irish White 3. Against the White Leviathan 4. The Hypnotic Division of America Epilogue Notes Acknowledgments Index
A truly brilliant book. Conceptually arresting and beautifully written...may well become a benchmark for informed discussion of race in the construction of American identities in the early twentieth century. -- David Levering Lewis, author of W.E.B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century, 1919-1963 Guterl's keen analysis goes right to the very heart of American cultural and political life in the twentieth century. This is the only study of race I know of which so thoroughly addresses the political along with the cultural; sweeping epochal trends along with the specificities of the historical moment; lone figures along with surrounding economic and political structures; the local along with the global; conscious intellectual agendas along with reflexive ideologies; 'blackness' along with 'whiteness.' At once a bold thinker and a cautious researcher, Guterl is as expansive and far-reaching with his chapters as he is painstaking and precise with his words. The Color of Race is crisp, accessible, energetic, and always interesting. -- Matthew Frye Jacobson, Yale University, author of Whiteness of a Different Color The Color of Race in America, 1900-1940 examines how Americans, black and white, thought about race in the 1920s and 1930s. Guterl shows the ways in which several thinkers on both sides of the color line changed their thinking about races. Early in the twentieth century, they envisioned some fifty human races; by the 1930s, they had come to see people as categorized into two large groups, black and white or white and colored. This ambitious and very smart work makes an original contribution to the study of race in the United States. -- Nell Irvin Painter, Princeton University I enjoyed reading this book, which is smart, interesting, informative, argumentative, and beautifully written. -- Walter Johnson, New York University
Matthew Pratt Guterl is Professor of Africana Studies and American Studies at Brown University.
A truly brilliant book. Conceptually arresting and beautifully
written...may well become a benchmark for informed discussion of
race in the construction of American identities in the early
twentieth century.
*David Levering Lewis, author of W.E.B. Du Bois: The Fight for
Equality and the American Century, 1919-1963*
Guterl's keen analysis goes right to the very heart of American
cultural and political life in the twentieth century. This is the
only study of race I know of which so thoroughly addresses the
political along with the cultural; sweeping epochal trends along
with the specificities of the historical moment; lone figures along
with surrounding economic and political structures; the local along
with the global; conscious intellectual agendas along with
reflexive ideologies; 'blackness' along with 'whiteness.' At once a
bold thinker and a cautious researcher, Guterl is as expansive and
far-reaching with his chapters as he is painstaking and precise
with his words. The Color of Race is crisp, accessible, energetic,
and always interesting.
*Matthew Frye Jacobson, Yale University, author of Whiteness of
a Different Color*
The Color of Race in America, 1900-1940 examines how Americans,
black and white, thought about race in the 1920s and 1930s. Guterl
shows the ways in which several thinkers on both sides of the color
line changed their thinking about races. Early in the twentieth
century, they envisioned some fifty human races; by the 1930s, they
had come to see people as categorized into two large groups, black
and white or white and colored. This ambitious and very smart work
makes an original contribution to the study of race in the United
States.
*Nell Irvin Painter, Princeton University*
I enjoyed reading this book, which is smart, interesting,
informative, argumentative, and beautifully written.
*Walter Johnson, New York University*
In four notably nuanced essays, Guterl suggests a parallel between
U.S. problems of racial classification at the turn of the 20th and
the 21st centuries. He argues that, then as now, the black-white
binary of racial identity faced the demographic realities of myriad
ethnic and racial groups and engendered fear of disuniting the U.S.
community. Focusing on what he fixes as the nation's cultural
market centered on New York City's borough of Manhattan, Guterl
juxtaposes the lives of four turn-of-the-20th-century New Yorkers:
Irish American nationalist Daniel Cohalan, eugenicist and white
supremacist Madison Grant, African American advocate W.E.B. Du
Bois, and mixed-race novelist Jean Toomer. Showing their individual
fascination with race and its politics, Guterl unpacks each
individual's race consciousness. The work is absorbing reading
bound to take a place alongside recent works on race, and
particularly whiteness.
*Library Journal*
Guterl highlights the lives and work of a number of personalities
during the early part of the twentieth century, who reflect the
transformation of racial identity in the U.S. Among those profiled
are Daniel Cohalan, an Irish-American nationalist and substantial
political figure in New York; Madison Grant, a eugenist and white
supremacist; W. E. B. Du Bois, an African American social
scientist; and Jean Toomer, a novelist and racial pluralist.
*Booklist*
A truly brilliant book. Conceptually arresting and beautifully
written...may well become a benchmark for informed discussion of
race in the construction of American identities in the early
twentieth century. -- David Levering Lewis, author of W.E.B. Du
Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century,
1919-1963
Guterl's keen analysis goes right to the very heart of American
cultural and political life in the twentieth century. This is the
only study of race I know of which so thoroughly addresses the
political along with the cultural; sweeping epochal trends along
with the specificities of the historical moment; lone figures along
with surrounding economic and political structures; the local along
with the global; conscious intellectual agendas along with
reflexive ideologies; 'blackness' along with 'whiteness.' At once a
bold thinker and a cautious researcher, Guterl is as expansive and
far-reaching with his chapters as he is painstaking and precise
with his words. The Color of Race is crisp, accessible,
energetic, and always interesting. -- Matthew Frye Jacobson, Yale
University, author of Whiteness of a Different Color
The Color of Race in America, 1900-1940 examines how
Americans, black and white, thought about race in the 1920s and
1930s. Guterl shows the ways in which several thinkers on both
sides of the color line changed their thinking about races. Early
in the twentieth century, they envisioned some fifty human races;
by the 1930s, they had come to see people as categorized into two
large groups, black and white or white and colored. This ambitious
and very smart work makes an original contribution to the study of
race in the United States. -- Nell Irvin Painter, Princeton
University
I enjoyed reading this book, which is smart, interesting,
informative, argumentative, and beautifully written. -- Walter
Johnson, New York University
In four notably nuanced essays, Guterl suggests a parallel between
U.S. problems of racial classification at the turn of the 20th and
the 21st centuries. He argues that, then as now, the black-white
binary of racial identity faced the demographic realities of myriad
ethnic and racial groups and engendered fear of disuniting the U.S.
community. Focusing on what he fixes as the nation's cultural
market centered on New York City's borough of Manhattan, Guterl
juxtaposes the lives of four turn-of-the-20th-century New Yorkers:
Irish American nationalist Daniel Cohalan, eugenicist and white
supremacist Madison Grant, African American advocate W.E.B. Du
Bois, and mixed-race novelist Jean Toomer. Showing their individual
fascination with race and its politics, Guterl unpacks each
individual's race consciousness. The work is absorbing reading
bound to take a place alongside recent works on race, and
particularly whiteness. -- Thomas J. Davis * Library Journal *
Guterl highlights the lives and work of a number of personalities
during the early part of the twentieth century, who reflect the
transformation of racial identity in the U.S. Among those profiled
are Daniel Cohalan, an Irish-American nationalist and substantial
political figure in New York; Madison Grant, a eugenist and white
supremacist; W. E. B. Du Bois, an African American social
scientist; and Jean Toomer, a novelist and racial pluralist. --
Vernon Ford * Booklist *
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