Allen - The Invention of the White Race, Volume 2

A powerful and polemic study. Times Literary Supplement

A monumental study of the birth of racism in the American South which makes truly new and convincing points about one of the most critical problems in U.S. history a highly original and seminal work. David Roediger, author of The Wages of Whiteness

A must read for all social justice activists, teachers, and scholars. Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, author of Red Dirt: Growing Up Okie

Allen transforms the readers understanding of race and racial oppression from what mainstream history often portrays as an unfortunate sideshow in U.S. history, to a central feature in the construction of U.S. (and indeed global) capitalism. Allen destroys any notion that race is a biological category but instead locates it in the realm of a construction aimed at oppression and social control. This is more than a look at history; it is a foundation for a path toward social justice. Bill Fletcher Jr., coauthor of Solidarity Divided

Decades before people made careers undoing racism, Ted Allen was working on this trailblazing study, which has become required reading. Noel Ignatiev, coeditor of Race Traitor, author of How the Irish Became White

A real tour de force, a welcome return to empiricism in the subfield of race studies, and a timely reintroduction of class into the discourse on American exceptionalism. Times Higher Education Supplement

As magisterial and comprehensive as the day it was first published, Theodore Allens The Invention of the White Race continues to set the intellectual, analytical and rhetorical standard when it comes to understanding the real roots of white supremacy, its intrinsic connection to the class system, and the way in which persons committed to justice and equity might move society to a different reality. Tim Wise, author of White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son

One of the most important books of U.S. history ever written. It illuminates the origins of the largest single obstacle to progressive change and working-class power in the U.S.: racism and white supremacy. Joe Berry, author of Reclaiming the Ivory Tower

As organizers of workers, we cannot effectively counter the depth of white racism in the U.S. if we dont understand its origin and mechanisms. Ted has figured something out that can guide our work its groundbreaking and its eye-opening. Gene Bruskin, U.S. Labor Against the War

An intriguing book that will be cited in all future discussions about the origins of racism and slavery in America. Labor Studies Journal

A must read for educators, scholars and social change activists now more than ever! Ted Allens writings illuminate the centrality of how white supremacy continues to work in maintaining a powerless American working class. Tami Gold, director of RFK in the Land of Apartheid and My Country Occupied

If one wants to understand the current, often contradictory, system of racial oppression in the United States and its historical origins there is only one place to start: Theodore Allens brilliant, illuminating, The Invention of the White Race. Michael Goldfield, author of The Color of Politics: Race and the Mainspring of American Politics

An outstanding, insightful original work with profound implications. Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, author of Social Control in Slave Plantation Societies

Few books are capable of carrying the profound weight of being deemed to be a classic this is surely one. Indeed, if one has to read one book to provide a foundation for understanding the contemporary U.S. read this one. Gerald Horne, author of Negro Comrades of the Crown

A richly researched and highly suggestive analysis Indispensable for readers interested in the disposition of power in Ireland, in the genesis of racial oppression in the U.S., or in the fluidity of race and the historic vicissitudes of whiteness. Choice

The Invention of the White Races contributions to the debates on notions of a white race are unquestionable and its relevance not simply for scholars of American history but for those interested in notions of race and class in any historical and geographical setting is beyond doubt. Labour History Review

Theodore W. Allen has enlisted me as a devoted reader. Metro Times Literary Quarterly

The most important book on the origin of racism in what was to become the United States and more important now perhaps than when it was first released in the mid nineties. Gregory Meyerson, coeditor of Cultural Logic

This modern classic presents an essential reconstruction of concepts necessary to any understanding of the Western heritage in the context of World history. Wilson J. Moses, author of The Golden Age of Black Nationalism

Truly original, and worthy of renewed engagement. Bruce Nelson, author of Irish Nationalists and the Making of the Irish Race

The Invention of the White Race is an important work for its meticulously researched materials and its insights into colonial history. Its themes and perspectives should be made available to all scholars A classic without which no future American history will be written. Audrey Smedley, author of Race in North America: Origin and Evolution of a Worldview

The most comprehensive and meticulously documented presentation of the historical, or as he calls it, sociogenic theory of racial oppression. Freedom Road Magazine

This edition published by Verso 2012
First published by Verso 1997
Theodore W. Allen 1997
Introduction to the second edition and appendices G and H
Jeffrey B. Perry 2012

All rights reserved

The moral rights of the authors have been asserted

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eBook ISBN: 978-1-84467-844-0
Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-84467-770-2

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress

v3.1

There is a sacred veil to be drawn over the beginnings of all government. (Edmund Burke, 16 February 1788, on the impeachment trial of Warren Hastings for maladministration of British rule in India)

The origin of states gets lost in a myth, in which one may believe, but which one may not discuss. (Karl Marx, The Civil War in France, 18481850)