The Racial State - by David Theo Goldberg (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

The Racial State argues that race is integral to the conceptual, philosophical and material emergence of modern nation state formation, and to its ongoing management.

From the Back Cover

Recent works on racial theory and state theory have tended to ignore each other. The Racial State, by contrast, argues that race is integral to the conceptual, philosophical and material emergence of the modern nation state, and to its ongoing management. By interrogating conceptual shifts in defining the racial state over time, Goldberg shows that debates and struggles about race in a wide variety of societies are really about the nature of political constitution and community. The book concludes with a discussion of how state and citizenship might be reconceived on assumptions of heterogeneity, mobility, and global openness. In this way, the book rethinks contemporary racial theorizing while providing a comprehensive account of modern state formation through racial configuration.

The author's approach is thoroughly interdisciplinary, combining perspectives from political theory and philosophy, historical sociology and anthropology, and cultural, postcolonial and African American studies.

Review Quotes

"Goldberg offers a compelling, historically grounded and powerful set of analytic tools to understand the pernicious synergy on which racisms and modern states have thrived. The Racial State offers that rare form of engaged scholarship speaks to the theoretical and the everyday, that joins analytic innovation and nuance, political commitment, and historical breadth." (Ann Laura Stoler, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor)

"The Racial State is a worthy contribution, following Omi and Winant's theory, to our understanding of modern racial formation. Commanding the canon of political philosophy and legal theory, Goldberg provides us with a thorough account of how racial distinction, exclusion, management and terror have been historically the reason and practice of the modern state." (Lisa Lowe, University of California, San Diego)

About the Author

David Theo Goldberg is the Director of the system wide University of California Humanities research Institute and professor of African American Studies and Criminology, Law and Society at the University of California, Irvine. His previous publications include Racist Culture (Blackwell Publishers, 1993) and Multiculturalism: A Critical Reader (Blackwell Publishers, 1994).