The Meaning of Race: Race, History, and Culture in Western Society (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Today, race seems to be both everywhere and nowhere. There still exists a general abhorrence about discriminating between people according to their race. And yet, people are continually categorized according to their race--Afro- Caribbean, white, Jewish--though we often have difficulty in defining just what race is. Everything from criminality to the entrepreneurial spirit is given a racial connotation--witness stereotypes of black muggers or Asian shopkeepers.

The Meaning of Race argues that the social meaning of race in modern society emerges from the contradiction between an ideological commitment to equality and the persistence of inequality as a practical reality. Kenan Malik here follows the development of racial ideology over the past two hundred years, tracing the different forms it has taken, from biological theories of race to the relationship between race and culture. Specific attention is focused on the impact of the break up of the postwar order and the end of the Cold War and the concomitant repoliticisation of the notion of racial difference. Malik goes on to critique the poststructuralist and postmodern theories of difference which have become the backbone of contemporary antiracist discourse, and to examine the possibility of transcending the discourse of race.

About the Author

Kenan Malik is a freelance journalist, lecturer, and broadcaster specializing in issues of race, politics, and the Third World. He has been a regular contributor to such newspapers as The Guardian and Independent.

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: NYU Press (August 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0814755534
• ISBN-13: 978-0814755532
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #893,995 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A fresh new perspective of race and multiculturalism, September 3, 2005

By	layla - See all my reviews

Is pluralism the most progressive standpoint or does progressive pluralism hold only slightly less racism than conservatism? Malik challenges the decades-old notion that pluralism is the best option for minorities, which most of us have taken for granted since the 70's. I must say that his compelling arguments have had an enormous impact on my political views and changed my perspective on many issues.

My only issue with this book is that he goes into ridiculous amounts of mundane detail. If you have the patience to wade through those details, there are all kinds of interesting new perspectives to find.

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars First class, October 26, 1999

By A Customer

Written with a breadth of knowledge, Malik doesn't disdain evidence taken from popular culture, but his work is replete with academic learning too. His thesis is challenging and well argued, and the book has the rare merit of proposing a view that sets the reader thinking on their own, and not just about race but all forms of socially constructed reality. First class.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Too much politically correct superficiality, August 26, 2008

By	G. Morton (USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I find this book much too superficial and outright intellectually dishonest on a number of points. While the book is informative on the historical context of some notions of race, his attacks on many studies that he thinks imply inferiority of races contain obvious distortions.

For instance, in the beginning of chapter 5 his lampoons a study that reveal statistical observations showing that a certain collection of countries have a significantly higher rate of airline crashes than certain 1st world countries and attributes this to a relative lack of "individualism" in challenging authority ( a fear of not deferring to authority is a well known factor in some airline crashes). Malik notes that these more airline accident prone nations are non-white and so accuses this study of essentially hiding a racial prejudice under a presumption of cultural difference:

`By transposing racial difference to cultural difference the notions of "inferiority" and "superiority" had become acceptable, even scientific." `

This is just jumping to preferred conclusions; the study was rightly noting statistical differences and associating them with a certain cultural traits that could be quite valid. Malik is too politically correct to tolerate the possibility of such differences.

Malik, in my opinion, is at his most intellectually dishonest (but politically correct) in his simplistic dismissal of the famous "Bell Curve" book as a "hodgepodge of everyday prejudices" and flawed methodology stemming from "the treatment of race as a biological entity" and "failing to understand intelligence as a social product and conflating correlation and causation." He simply assumes that Murray and Herrnstein were complete idiots. Their treatment of race did not necessarily assume a biological basis, in fact, one can just talk about human groups specifically and measurable group differences (and avoid the word "race"), which have averages (like IQ averages). And there are many psychologists who would take issue with the idea of "intelligence" as just a social product: the Bell Curve book talked of "cognitive ability" or IQ to avoid this loaded word. Furthermore, Murray and Herrnstein go to some pains to explain that they are not conflating correlation and causation. But it seems to be PC sufficient to discredit this book with superficial blather.

This is just a another safe & shallow book on race that the author knows will easily get applause.