The Forging of Races: Race and Scripture in the Protestant Atlantic World, 1600–2000

Front Cover
Cambridge University Press, Sep 7, 2006 - History
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.
 

Contents

Acknowledgements page
1
Race as Scripture Problem
19
Race and Religious Orthodoxy in the Early Modern Era
54
Race the Enlightenment and the Authority of Scripture
79
Monogenesis Slavery and the NineteenthCentury
121
Racialising Religion in the Nineteenth
168
Forms of Racialised Religion
203
Black CounterTheologies
247
Conclusion
271
Notes
277
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2006)

Colin Kidd is Professor of Modern History at the University of Glasgow and Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. He has previously written Subverting Scotland's Past (1993) and British Identities before Nationalism (1999).

Bibliographic information