How Race Is Made: Slavery, Segregation, and the Senses

For at least two centuries, argues Mark Smith, white southerners used all of their senses — not just their eyes — to construct racial difference and define race. His provocative analysis, extending from the colonial period to the mid-twentieth century, shows how whites of all classes used the artificial binary of “black” and “white” to justify slavery and erect the political, legal, and social structure of segregation.

Based on painstaking research, How Race Is Made is a highly original, alw...