The Forging of Races: Race and Scripture in the Protestant Atlantic World, 1600-2000 [Paperback]

Colin Kidd (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 25, 2006

This book revolutionises our understanding of race. Building upon the insight that races are products of culture rather than biology, Colin Kidd demonstrates that the Bible - the key text in Western culture - has left a vivid imprint on modern racial theories and prejudices. Fixing his attention on the changing relationship between race and theology in the Protestant Atlantic world between 1600 and 2000 Kidd shows that, while the Bible itself is colour-blind, its interpreters have imported racial significance into the scriptures. Kidd's study probes the theological anxieties which lurked behind the confident facade of of white racial supremacy in the age of empire and race slavery, as well as the ways in which racialist ideas left their mark upon new forms of religiosity. This is essential reading for anyone interested in the histories of race or religion.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...the book is an absorbing excursion."
-Ruth Alden Doan, H-Atlantic

"Colin Kidd's well-researched, wide-ranging, and insightful book...demolishes such assumptions when it comes to the issue of race"
-Timothy Larsen, Christianity Today

"The Forging of Races is a carefully crafted contribution...Historians would find The Forging of Races indispensable reading, particularly if their scope includes the interpretation of racial politics, colonial justification, and Protestant progress into modernity."
-Kathryn Lofton, Journal of Interdisciplinary History

"Historians of race, religion, scriptures, and modernity most certainly cannot afford to miss what Kidd has to say; his meticulous research and generous notes will aid serious researchers for years to come. Furthermore, his clear and cogent explanation of race as a social system and his mapping of international relations of scripture and race will prove immensely valuable for teaching both graduate and undergraduate courses."
-Sylvester A. Johnson, H-Amstdy

"This is an erudite and scholarly work, rooted in an extensive knowledge of the writings of preachers, academics, and intellectuals."
-Catherine Hall, University College London, American Historical Review

"The value of this impressive study is its patient and detailed deconstruction of the ways of religion and race, two pillars of Protestant Western culture, have propped each other up for four centuries."
-Jon Sensbach, University of Florida, The Journal of American History

"Colin Kidd's work offers an intriguing intellectual history of the ambiguous connection between Protestant theology and concepts of race since the early modern era..."
--Fredrik Albritton Jonsson, University of Chicago, Journal of Modern History


"In this thoughtful inquiry, the author succeeds in his objective of tracing how intellectuals in the Wetsern world utilized the Holy Bible in various, often opposing, ways to support changing constructions of the concept of race throughout the centuries in question....clearly conceived and organized....The design of the chapters effectively combines thematic and chronological progression....A major strength of the book is the skill with which the author succinctly interweaves an encyclopedic array of historiography and other literature into their surrounding historical contexts..."
--Allison Blakely, Boston University, The Historian


"...a must read for those who study social, cultural, political or religious history." -Phillip Luke Sinitiere, World History Bulletin

Book Description

This book explores the way in which religious ideas have shaped British and American thinking about race between 1600 and 2000. It shows that the Bible has been just as influential as science over the last few centuries in forging racial attitudes and identities.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 318 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press; 1 edition (September 25, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521797292
• ISBN-13: 978-0521797290
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #420,465 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great scholarship, July 21, 2011

By 

Bryan M. Stephany (Pittsburgh, PA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Forging of Races: Race and Scripture in the Protestant Atlantic World, 1600-2000 (Paperback)

In The Forging of Races Colin Kidd examines the relationship between Biblical Christianity and the construction of race in the 17th to 21st century. While Kidd went into the project with a presupposition about the nature of the relationship of Christianity and racism (he hypothesized "that the dethroning of biblical authority was a necessary prelude to the emergence of modern racism" ), in the end he found that the relationship between the two is much more complicated.

Kidd highlights a significant tension between science (consisting of biology, sociology, and anthropology) and theology from which understandings and meanings of race were negotiated in the 17th to 21st century time period. Given the Christianized milieu of the time period, the emerging scientific understandings of race were often held in check by the dominant theological discourse. This meant that racial oppression and liberation were often promulgated on theological terms rather than on scientific ones. With this in mind, Kidd also notes that competing discourses existed within both the scientific and theological camps just as much as between them.

One of the more prominent themes that Kidd discusses is the multitude of interpretations of key Biblical texts, primarily the book of Genesis. Of the several themes covered in this area, the two most prominent in Kidd's analysis is the monogenesis/polygenesis debate and the meaning behind the story of Ham and the curse placed on his son Canaan. Out of all the stories and issues covered in Kidd's text, these two seem to carry the most weight when it comes to understanding how and why racism became so prominent in the 17th to 21st century time period.
Kidd illustrates throughout the text that the various interpretations of the stories in Genesis (such as the creation account or the story of Ham's punishment) do not provide a causal link between Christianity and racism (or even secularism and racism). Rather, these two stories complicated the way in which racism was manifest in this time period. For example, it might seem logical to believe that a monogenist perspective fosters unity of humanity rather than division.

Yet Kidd shows how various intellectual leaders use monogensist (as well as polygensist) understandings of Creation to both subvert and promote racism. Multiple meanings are similarly derived from the story concerning the punishment of Ham/Canaan as well. Some intellectuals interpreted the story through a more humanizing, non-racist lens while others interpreted it in a way that justified racism. Fundamental to Kidd's analysis is that the varying interpretations of biblical Scripture, when added to the threat presented by the advancement of science, compounded the complexity of how race was understood.

I highly recommend this book. It is a challenging, provocative, and intellectually stimulating work of scholarship.

0 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great, February 2, 2009

By 

C. McLain (usa) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Forging of Races: Race and Scripture in the Protestant Atlantic World, 1600-2000 (Paperback)

Service and product were great . . . delivered in a timely manner . . . no problems!!!