The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class

by David R. Roediger Verso Books 11/22/2022, paperback SKU: 9781839768309   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. Reviews: "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, Ame