Race

Originally published in 2012 and designed to complement the influential public education project of the same name, RACE: Are We So Different? has earned a reputation as a valuable, informative, and accessible examination of race, racism, and human variation. Through thoughtful explorations of history and science, RACE develops a compelling thesis: race is a powerful force in everyday life and has become deeply embedded in our social institutions, yet in truth, race is a recent human invention that originates not from our biology but from our cultural constructs.In this fully updated second edition, Alan H. Goodman, Yolanda T. Moses, and Joseph L. Jones take a timely look at modern ideas surrounding race and consider the ways that these ideas have changed over time. New material in the second edition covers recent history and emerging topics in the study of race. In taking on such pressing topics as white privilege, the re-emergence of white nationalism, rising intolerance for immigration of people of color, and increases in Islamophobic attitudes, RACE demonstrates that a clear and precise conversation on the role of race in political and social life is of critical importance. In addition, new coverage of police brutality, increasing attitudes of anti-blackness, the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement, the American prison system, and changing public attitudes on structural inequality provides essential insight into the ways in which complex social systems dictate our lives.Responding to the recent explosion of data available on human genetic diversity, the second edition has also been updated to account for current knowledge about human biological variation, which provides further evidence that race is a social phenomenon. With a selection of engaging photos, illustrations, timelines, and diagrams included throughout the text, RACE compels readers to carefully consider their own ideas about race and the role that race plays in the world around them.