Racism: A Very Short Introduction

• Takes a frank and objective look at how and why racial prejudices and stereotypes are deeply embedded in Western culture.
• Guides the reader through the confusion that surrounds the meaning of the word racism, and how it differs from ethnocentrism, nationalism, and xenophobia.
• Examines how the scientific validity of 'race' has been comprehensively undermined by modern genetic science.
• Uses important historical examples as well as up-to-date cases, from the British Empire to the American civil rights movement and the Macpherson Report on 'institutional racism' in the London Metropolitan Police.

Readership: General readers interested in racial issues in society, and students studying sociology, literature, history, and postcolonialism.

Ali Rattansi, Visiting Professor of Sociology at City University, London.

Introduction
1: Racism and racists: some conundrums
2: Fear of the dark? : blacks, Jews and barbarians
3: Beyond the pale: scientific racism, the nation and the politics of colour
4: Imperialism, eugenics and the Holocaust
5: The case against scientific racism
6: New racisms?
7: Racist identities: ambivalence, contradiction and commitment
8: Beyond institutional racism: 'race', class and gender in the USA and Britain
Conclusions: prospects for a post-racial future
References
Further Reading