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.
Michael Banton taught social anthroplogy in the University of Edinburgh 1954-65; political science in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1962-63; and sociology in the University of Bristol 1965-92. He was President of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 1987-89, and from 1986 to 2001 a member of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (Chairman, 1996-98).
“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