The Wages of Whiteness

Description

Race and the Making of the American Working Class (Third Edition)

By David Roediger
Introduction by Kathleen Cleaver

Combining classical Marxism, psychoanalysis, and the new labor history pioneered by E.P. Thompson and Herbert Gutman, David Roediger’s widely acclaimed book provides an original study of the formative years of working-class racism in the United States. This, he argues, cannot be explained simply with reference to economic advantage; rather, white working-class racism is underpinned by a complex series of psychological and ideological mechanisms which reinforce racial stereotypes and thus help to forge the identities of white workers in opposition to black workers.

In a new preface, Roediger reflects on the reception, influence, and critical response to The Wages of Whiteness, while Kathleen Cleaver’s insightful introduction hails the importance of a work that has become a classic.

“Scholarly and thoroughly documented, The Wages of Whiteness is nonetheless a highly readable, compact and compelling narrative. A provocative illumination of the long and tortuous history of racism in the US.”—Franklin Rosemont, author of numerous radical books including Joe Hill: The IWW and the Making of a Revolutionary Workingclass Counterculture

“A welcome challenge to the old and new mythmakers.”—Noel Ignatiev, author of Acceptable Men