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Book

Who’s Black and Why?

A Hidden Chapter from the Eighteenth-Century Invention of Race
  • Henry Louis Gates Jr.
  • Andrew S. Curran
2022
Harvard University Press

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Featured Excerpts

  • Painting by Henri Testelin of Colbert Presenting the Members of the Royal Academy of Sciences to Louis XIV in 1667 (17th century).
    Book Review

    The Dawn of Scientific Racism

    In the 1740s, Bordeaux developed some of the first modern theories of racial difference, even as the city profited from the slave trade.
    by Christy Pichichero via Public Books on October 25, 2022
  • Aerial view illustration of a slave ship
    Book Review

    ‘Who’s Black and Why?’

    A new book by Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Andrew S. Curran examines how 18th-century academics understood Black identity.
    by John Samuel Harpham via The Chronicle of Higher Education on March 31, 2022
  • Painting by Jean-Baptiste Oudry, "Africa: A European Merchant Bartering with a Black Chief"
    Book Excerpt

    Inventing the Science of Race

    In 1741, Bordeaux’s Royal Academy of Sciences held an essay contest searching for the origin of “blackness.” The results help us see how Enlightenment thinkers justified slavery.
    by Andrew S. Curran, Henry Louis Gates Jr. via New York Review of Books on November 24, 2021
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