Race: The History of an Idea in America

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.