The Wages of Whiteness : Race and the Making of the American Working Class

Kendrick C Babcock Professor of History David R Roediger; Kathleen Cleaver; Mike Davis
VERSO
 9781844671458
1-84467-145-3

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.

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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 that reinforce racial stereotypes, and thus help to forge the identities of white workers in opposition to Blacks. 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.