The Race Makers
A History of the Enlightenment’s Most Dangerous Legacy
Seiten
2026
The Westbourne Press (Verlag)
978-1-908906-63-2 (ISBN)
The Westbourne Press (Verlag)
978-1-908906-63-2 (ISBN)
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A gripping reassessment of the Enlightenment, exploring how leading thinkers who championed liberty also shaped modern racial ideologies – tracing their lives across empires, plantations, and palaces in a powerful story of ideas, power and exclusion.
In the early eighteenth century, Christianity began to lose its hold on the story of humankind. Yet centuries of xenophobia, religious intolerance and emerging biological ideas did not simply disappear. Instead, secular thinkers reshaped them as they looked to redefine what it meant to be human. By century’s end, naturalists and philosophers had divided humankind into racial categories using methods associated with the Enlightenment era.
In The Race Makers, Enlightenment specialist Andrew S. Curran traces the emergence of race through thirteen pivotal figures, including Louis XIV, Buffon, Carl Linnaeus, Voltaire, David Hume, Adam Smith, Immanuel Kant and Thomas Jefferson. From the gilded halls of Versailles to the slave plantations of the Caribbean, and from the court of the Mughal Empire to the drawing rooms of Monticello, Curran reveals how the pursuit of knowledge became entangled with – and often drove – systems of empire and oppression. The result is a bold reappraisal of the Enlightenment’s most celebrated luminaries.
Combining rigorous scholarship with vivid storytelling, The Race Makersoffers a sweeping and unsettling account of how modern concepts of race were born – and why they still matter.
In the early eighteenth century, Christianity began to lose its hold on the story of humankind. Yet centuries of xenophobia, religious intolerance and emerging biological ideas did not simply disappear. Instead, secular thinkers reshaped them as they looked to redefine what it meant to be human. By century’s end, naturalists and philosophers had divided humankind into racial categories using methods associated with the Enlightenment era.
In The Race Makers, Enlightenment specialist Andrew S. Curran traces the emergence of race through thirteen pivotal figures, including Louis XIV, Buffon, Carl Linnaeus, Voltaire, David Hume, Adam Smith, Immanuel Kant and Thomas Jefferson. From the gilded halls of Versailles to the slave plantations of the Caribbean, and from the court of the Mughal Empire to the drawing rooms of Monticello, Curran reveals how the pursuit of knowledge became entangled with – and often drove – systems of empire and oppression. The result is a bold reappraisal of the Enlightenment’s most celebrated luminaries.
Combining rigorous scholarship with vivid storytelling, The Race Makersoffers a sweeping and unsettling account of how modern concepts of race were born – and why they still matter.
Andrew S. Curran is the William Armstrong Professor of Humanities at Wesleyan University. A writer-scholar fascinated by the eighteenth century, his writing has appeared in The New York Review of Books, New York Times, The Guardian, Newsweek, TIME, Paris Review, El País and The Wall Street Journal. Curran is the author and editor of five books, including Diderot and the Art of Thinking Freely, and, with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Who’s Black and Why?.
| Erscheint lt. Verlag | 12.2.2026 |
|---|---|
| Zusatzinfo | 73 b&w illustrations; 73 Illustrations |
| Sprache | englisch |
| Maße | 153 x 234 mm |
| Gewicht | 650 g |
| Themenwelt | Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte |
| Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Geschichte / Politik | |
| Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Neuzeit (bis 1918) | |
| Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Ethik | |
| ISBN-10 | 1-908906-63-4 / 1908906634 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1-908906-63-2 / 9781908906632 |
| Zustand | Neuware |
| Informationen gemäß Produktsicherheitsverordnung (GPSR) | |
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Buch | Hardcover (2024)
C.H.Beck (Verlag)
CHF 47,60
