Description
Book SynopsisTrade Review"Blatt has provided a service to intellectual historians. This well-documented and clearly written book achieves its objectives by squarely positioning racist assumptions at the heart of political science's origins in the modern academy." *
The Journal of American History *
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[N]ot only a historical work that traces the foundations of racialism within the discipline of political science but is also a compelling account about the disavowal and continued importance of race in politics...those trained in political science (undergraduates, graduates) and those teaching political thought would do well to stock Race and the Making of American Political Science on their bookshelves.
" * Journal of African American History *
"Jessica Blatt's groundbreaking book explores the leading thinkers who shaped the foundation of the political science discipline . . . [T]his book makes an important contribution to our understanding of the merger between science and politics. It makes a convincing argument that racialism and its various manifestations (White supremacy, colonialism/neocolonialism, imperialism,evolution, and racial psychometrics) have been instrumental to shaping political science." *
History of Education Quarterly *
"Jessica Blatt has delivered a masterful account of the illiberal fiber inherent in American political reality. That is, how a country committed to democratic equality and freedom has invested so much ink, blood, and money in ideas of racial difference to produce a conjoined history of unfreedoms and massive inequalities. She brings history to life on the page in her compelling telling of the ways that key intellectuals shaped the early field of political science through varied but sustained commitments to normalized white supremacy. Blatt has opened the way for a watershed reflective moment in her field-and beyond." * Duana Fullwiley, Stanford University *
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Race and the Making of American Political Science is one of those rare books that makes an important scholarly contribution and a significant intervention in civic discourse. In examining carefully how racialist ideologies shaped the first half century of American political science, Blatt also provides a richly theorized and historically grounded account of what 'race' is as an ideology of essential human difference, how it has evolved, and how its premises continue to shape academic and popular discourses. This book is a must read for anyone interested in the history of the social sciences and anyone concerned with making sense of race ideology and how it works in our society." * Adolph Reed, Jr., University of Pennsylvania *
"In an exhilarating story, which never flags in energy or excitement, Jessica Blatt shows how foundational racism and concepts of race were to American political science, not just at the beginning but in its heyday as a social science. A pioneering work exploding with insights and discoveries on every page, her book is also a cautionary tale for today, when academics and journalists increasingly turn to race as a category of political explanation, unwittingly repeating the maneuvers that Blatt so vividly documents and describes." * Corey Robin, Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center *
"Jessica Blatt has written a fine book. She is correct that race is a dimension of disciplinary history that has not been seriously explored. Everyone notices the founding generation's Teutonism, but none of the major historical studies have taken it seriously as a species of racialism or examined its lingering consequences." * Dorothy Ross, Johns Hopkins University *
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Race and the Making of American Political Science illuminates key elements in the past of American political science-the founding of the discipline around a core racialist scheme and the subsequent evolution of ideas about race within the discipline as practitioners adapted to the rise of U.S. power in the world." * Howard Brick, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor *
Table of ContentsIntroduction
Chapter 1. "The White Man's Mission": John W. Burgess and the Columbia School of Political Science
Chapter 2. "All Things Lawful Are Not Expedient": The American Political Science Association Considers Jim Crow
Chapter 3. Twentieth-Century Problems: Administering an American Empire
Chapter 4. The Journal of Race Development: Evolution and Uplift
Chapter 5. Laying Specters to Rest: Political Science Encounters the Boasian Critique of Racial Anthropology
Chapter 6. Finding New Premises: Race Science, Philanthropy, and the Institutional Establishment of Political Science
Epilogue
Notes
Index
Acknowledgments
