Customer Reviews

Documents Of American Prejudice: An Anthology Of Writings On Race From Thomas Jefferson To David Duke

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book is an excellent, useful and highly unusual collection of "primary documents" - it shows the ubiquity of racist thinking through much of American history, an oppressive mindset from which we are, hopefully, starting to emerge. The other reviews on this page are stupid and disturbing. The kind of praise that they make of these texts would be like reading a collection of medieval writing and commenting on how they are an "inspirational breath of fresh air" because they legitimate the idea that the world is flat.

In this age of political correctness, when the media and universities take great pains to sanitize the American past, this anthology of primary source documents is a breath of fresh air. The reader is able to see a line of political and social thought that is today repressed in America; yet, as one reviews the long line of thinkers, politicians, scientists, and inventors who thought race mattered, one gets the sneaking suspicion that maybe there is more intellectual weight to the subject than the media today would like to let on. Very intelligent, far-sighted men believed America had a European core worth preserving and defending. Of course, the author did not assemble the materials with this view in mind. His purpose was to show how an entire society could be deluded by prejudice. But it would not be unreasonable to assert that the documents, many from the early 1900s, show a society much healthier, much more sane, than our own...one that knew what was at stake in maintaining a high Western culture--like America was, and by studying these documents, like America can be again.

The editor feels that by associating these 100+ excerpts with the word "racist" he can instantly refute them. On the contrary there is much here for reasoned minds to agree with--especially in the selections by Murray/Herrnstein, Shockley, Jensen. George and D'Souza. Certainly some of the older racial tracts are just silly but much of the modern writings hold true. Even some of the predictions made many years ago, like in Ross' "The Old World and the New" (1914) about the future of America have proven quite accurate. Joshi also peppers the book with some egalitarian essays meant to counter the rest, but despite the pleasant platitudes, these sections do little for the book and basically attempt to refute the "racists" with not much more than a few doses of "shame on you" scorn and a few shots of saccharine sweet sentimentality. No positive proof for equality is presented, but then again, egalitarianism has never required proof for their beliefs.

This book is very inspiring for those who love humanity. It contains a lot of inspirational material. It is a nice historical completement to books such as: Why Race matters (by Michael Levin); Race, Evolution and Behavior : A Life History Perspective (by J. P. Rushton); The Real American Dilemma: Race, Immigration and the Future of America (by Jared Taylor.); Duke's My awakening. I especially recommend Joshi's book to anyone who cares about America.

This book is very inspiring for those who love humanity. It contains a lot of inspirational material. It is a nice historical completement to books such as: Why Race matters (by Michael Levin); Race, Evolution and Behavior : A Life History Perspective (by J. P. Rushton); The Real American Dilemma: Race, Immigration and the Future of America (by Jared Taylor.); Duke's My awakening. I especially recommend Joshi's book to anyone who cares about America.

The previous reviewer from Louisiana is the kind of racist created and nurtured by the theorists, psuedo-scientists and false prophets, featured in Joshi's book, who attemp to justify their people's oppressive acts. The illogic, the straining to defend the indefensible is all on display. Joshi's book is extremely valuable in exposing the real founding creed of the USof A - oppress, deny and blame the victim.

I have not seen some much garbage and simple stupidity in one book in a long time. This book is full of half "truths", misleading statements,and dubious and shady quotes. It is hard for me to understand (which I don not) how can anyone even bother to waste his/her time writing this stuff. Doesn't the author has anything better to do? I guess not!!!!!!