Description
Book SynopsisExamines the entwined formation of racial theory and sexual constructs within settler colonialism in the US and Australia. Gregory D. Smithers historicizes the dissemination and application of scientific and social-scientific ideas within the process of nation building and shows how intellectual constructs of race and sexuality were mobilized to subdue Aboriginal peoples.
Trade Review“A shining example of how to do comparative and transnational history.”—
American Historical Review “[Gregory D. Smithers] combines a very ambitious synthesis of existing scholarship with original research into primary sources. This book could have a profound impact upon scholarly thinking in relevant fields.”—Ann McGrath, author of
Illicit Love: Interracial Sex and Marriage in the United States and Australia
“A keen critique of the impossible logic of racism in two major settler societies anxious to strengthen their sense of nationhood. . . . Readers will be fully convinced of the key importance of whiteness in both these societies, and of the science that bolstered it.”—Philippa Levine, author of
The British Empire: Sunrise to Sunset Table of ContentsList of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
A Note about Terminology
Introduction
Part I
1. On the Importance of Good Breeding
2. Debating Race and the Meaning of Whiteness
3. Eliminating the "Dubious Hyphen between Savagery and Civilization”
4. Racial Discourse in the United States and Australia
Part II
5. Missionaries, Settlers, Cherokees, and African Americans, 1780s–1850s
6. Missionaries, Settlers, and Australian Aborigines, 1780s–1850s
7. The Evolution of an American Race, 1860s–1890s
8. The Evolution of White Australia, 1860–1890
Part III
9. The “Science” of Human Breeding
10. “Breeding out the Colour”
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index
