A lucid analysis of the origins of racism.

Midstream, February, 2004 by Rosenthal, Gilbert S.

Racism: A Short History, by George Fredrickson. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2002, 207 pp., $22.95.

"Racist" is a term of opprobrium these days. For years, Israel was branded a most "racist nation" and Zionism was equated with racism by the United Nations until that organization finally repealed the infamous resolution. Black demagogues like to brand opponents "racists." The word is loaded with nasty connotations almost equivalent to "Nazi." But the phrase has been more often than not misapplied, as George Fredrickson insists in his latest work, Racism: A Short History. A professor of sociology at Stanford University and author of significant works on anti-black racism, Fredrickson offers a concisely lucid analysis of the origins of racism,...

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