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The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class (Haymarket Series) Paperback – July 17, 2007

4.5 out of 5 stars 86

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 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.

The Amazon Book Review
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“At last an American labor historian realizes that white workers have a racial identity that matters as race matters to workers who are not white.”
—Nell Irwin Painter, Princeton University

“A brilliant account of how white workers in antebellum America constructed a social identity fundamentally premised on their ‘whiteness.’”
—Steve Fraser, American Historical Review

“Far and away the best treatment of white working-class racial attitudes in the nineteenth century that I have seen”
—George M. Fredrickson

“A welcome challenge to the old and new mythmakers.”
—Noel Ignatiev, Labor [Le Travail]

“Compelling.”
—John White , Times Higher Education Supplement

“Delivers powerful insights into the collective psyche of the U.S. working class. Striking.”
—Chris Searle, Morning Star

“An important contribution to our understanding of what has often been called ‘American exceptionalism.’ Sensitive and detailed handling of a wide range of original sources.”
—Louis Kushnick, Race and Class

“Brilliant. Remarkable for its subtlety, its penetrating and honest analysis.”
—Fred Whitehead, People’s Culture

“Scholarly and thoroughly documented, The Wages of Whiteness is nonetheless a highly readable, compact and compelling narrative. A provocative illumination of the long and tortuous history of racism in the US.”
—Franklin Rosemont, Heartland Journal

“Casts a new light on a broad social, cultural and political landscape.”
—Iver Bernstein , Journal of American History

“An indispensable addition to our knowledge of American working class formation.”
—Joe W. Trotter, Journal of Social History

“In this penetrating study of the origins of white working-class racial attitudes, Roediger profoundly illuminates the new labor history. A distinctive extension of the scholarly studies that locate the nexus of American society in race and labor.”
—Joseph Boskin, Choice

“Interesting and useful. Reconstructs how labor in America made racism part of its very being.”
—John DeBrizzi, Telos

“A brilliant, authoritative, carefully researched study of major importance.”
—Michael Rogin, Radical History Review

“A real contribution to the study of the dynamic relationship that exists between the variables of race and class. A very engaging and compelling book.
Wages of Whiteness will have a broad appeal to students and researchers across a wide array of disciplines.”
—Lisa Reilly and Cameron McCarthy, European Journal of Intercultural Studies

“A significant contribution, particularly necessary for those who want to see the struggle for labor unity across racial lines move forward.”
—Paul Mishler, Science and Society

“Roediger’s lasting contribution ensures that the history of race and class can no longer be written from the perspective of romantic working class heroes, nor can it be written in a spirit of self-righteous ‘anger.’”
—Barry Goldberg, New Politics

“Subtle, serious, commands our attention.”
—J. Milton Yinger , Ethnic and Racial Studies

“Roediger’s excellent book is must reading for those interested in American working-class formation.”
—Andrew Kim, Critical Sociology

“In
The Wages of Whiteness David Roediger takes a courageous look at the development of white working-class racism and attempts to unravel its complex skein of economic, cultural, and psycho-political issues.”
—Soledad Santiago, Foundation News

“Of great originality and yet firmly grounded in a rich and diverse scholarship. There is no denying the enormous achievement of this book. Henceforth there will be no evading the question of racism in our contemplation of working-class formation in America.”
—David Brody, Journal of Interdisciplinary History

“Offers a compelling understanding of working-class racism. A rich and detailed history that traces notions of whiteness from the early seventeenth century to the late nineteenth.”
—Rhonda Levine, Contemporary Sociology

“Much has been written about the sources of racism and the wellsprings of racial conflict but few historians have shown David Roediger’s sensitivity to the process by which race figured in defining the very nature of American society. The author’s most important contribution is to elucidate how racial identity was critical to the formation of the working class during the nineteenth century. Roediger’s central argument is most compelling.”
—Ronald Mendel, Labour History Review

“David Roediger’s fascinating and vital study will satisfy even the most jaded intellectual palate and deserves the widest circulation.”
—Martin Crawford, History

“The book speaks so clearly to what historians know about the American working class, but with enormous originality. Broadly accessible to a wide audience, it connects the histories of slave labor and free labor thus providing a more profound understanding of American working class formation. Theoretically sophisticated, pulling together subtle but significant connections among race, class and gender. Blindingly revealing and of lasting scholarly value.”
Organization of American Historians Prize Committee, 1992 Merle Curti Prize

“A timely and important intervention in the current debates over ‘race’ and ethnicity.”
—Catherine Hall, New Left Review

“Roediger’s exciting new book makes us understand what it means to see oneself as white in a new way. An extremely important and insightful book.”
—Lawrence Glickman, The Nation

“The Celestine Prophecy of whiteness studies.”
SPLN

About the Author

David Roediger is Kendrick Babcock Chair of History at the University of Illinois. Among his books are Our Own Time: A History of American Labor and the Working Day (with Philip S. Foner), How Race Survived US History: From Settlement and Slavery to the Obama Phenomenon, and The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class. He is the editor of Fellow Worker: The Life of Fred Thompson, The North and Slavery and Black on White: Black Writers on What It Means to Be White as well as a new edition of Covington Hall’s Labor Struggles in the Deep South. His articles have appeared in New Left Review, Against the Current, Radical History Review, History Workshop Journal, The Progressive and Tennis.

Mike Davis is the author of several books including Planet of Slums, City of Quartz, Ecology of Fear, Late Victorian Holocausts, and Magical Urbanism. He was recently awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. He lives in Papa’aloa, Hawaii.

Michael Sprinker was Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. His Imaginary Relations: Aesthetics and Ideology in the History of Historical Materialism and History and Ideology in Proust are also published by Verso. Together with Mike Davis, he founded Verso’s Haymarket Series and guided it until his death in 1999.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Verso; New Edition (July 17, 2007)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 195 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1844671453
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1844671458
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.53 x 0.61 x 8.25 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 out of 5 stars 86

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Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
86 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Reviewed in the United States on June 4, 2023
Fascinating book that was really eye-opening and took a different perspective than I am used to. Anyone interested in U.S. history or even U.S. politics or society in anyway should give this book a chance. It arrived in perfect shape.
Reviewed in the United States on May 2, 2021
Just started reading it. So far it’s what every person who calls themselves “white” should read. You’re living a lie!
4 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on October 22, 2018
very interesting book! i especially enjoyed the discussion of blackface and minstrel shows. i never thought of how immigrants to the united states were assimilated into racism. used for a university grad course on the early nineteenth century.
6 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on October 17, 2012
This book looks at the very interesting question of why the American labor movement did not embrace the cause of Black emancipation and civil right. On the surface it would seem that the two wold have enough in common to share a common cause. Not so argues Roedinger. In fact he argues that the emerging industrial worker of the mid to late 19th century who was low skilled and often times a recent immigrant from Ireland or Germany had an even more powerful interest in distancing themselves from the degradation that was associated with Blacks and the jobs that they performed. While this wold seem counter intuitive, Roediger argues that many unskilled white workers gained a type of social legitimacy from separating themselves from non-white labor and gaining for themselves the status of being seen as White American workers. While the beginning of the book is a little dense as the author tries to tease out the changing meaning of different terms for labor and racial categories in the pre and post Civil War period, this only sets the stage for more concrete example in the second half when he examines the experiences of Irish immigrant laborers in the later chapters. This is and interesting book in that it examines race from the perspective of what it means to be White and the social implications of that. It reminds the reader that the social categorization of race is dependent on opposition and that this opposition is in no way a natural or concrete boundary but rather a a dynamic social construct that all Americans should be aware of.
48 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on January 30, 2015
This is a classic work on white racism and its genesis. Roediger takes the reader in thorough examination of the effects of whiteness...it is a great resource book for papers....
10 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on June 8, 2019
Such a great book!
Reviewed in the United States on November 29, 2013
Oh, please! I can understand why college professors assign this book. It is important to understand why historiography moves through phases. This is definitely one of the phases that has come and gone. As a result, this book serves only as an example of how NOT to write historical analysis.

Roediger's treatment of racial history is an overly simplistic portrayal of American societal evolution after emancipation. His reductionist approach to surveying racial angst is a name-dropping festival. This book left me feeling as though Roediger did little work to speak with his own voice. The profligate name-dropping (fifteen names in one paragraph alone) left me wondering if Roediger has an opinion of his own or, rather, prefers to hide behind the opinions of others. Of reductionist history –if any historical trend, act or agency does not fit inside his narrow Marxist interpretation then he either simply ignores it or grossly misinterprets information to match his politically predisposed conclusions.

Overall, this book seems to serve as a platform to advertise Roediger's trademark Marxist historical idiom. Marxist historiography is dead. This book demonstrates why this is so.

To any history professors reading this review: this book is best served to your classes in excerpted form. I encourage you not to anger your students with the bother and expense of buying this book, and then requiring them to read it. Could discord enhance your class discussion? Perhaps. However, if it were like the discussion in my graduate class, you would spend more time tearing this work apart than discussing its paltry merits. Of the merits: the introduction, only seven pages penned by Kathleen Cleaver, presented the lion's share of insightful information.
21 people found this helpful
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