Plessy V. Ferguson: A Brief History With Documents (Bedford Series in History and Culture) - Hardcover

Brook Thomas

3.83

12 ratings by Goodreads

9780312162849: Plessy V. Ferguson: A Brief History With Documents (Bedford Series in History and Culture)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312162847 ISBN 13: 9780312162849

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, 1996

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In 1896, The Supreme Court's Plessy v. Ferguson decision made legal a system of "separate but equal" racial segregation not overruled until 1954. Using the full text of the Court's opinion, along with a selection of responses to the ruling, Brook Thomas allows students to re-create a context of the complicated debates and conditions in which the decision took place.

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About the Author:

Brook Thomas is chair of the English and Comparative Literature Department at the University of California, Irvine. After a book on James Joyce's Ulysses (1982), he turned his attention to the intersections of law, literature, and cultural history in the United States. He is author of Cross-Examinations of Law and Literature: Cooper, Hawthorne, Stowe, and Melville (1987): The New Historicism and Other Old-Fashioned Topics (1991); and American Literary Realism and the Failed Promise of Contract (1997). He has lectured on Plessy v. Ferguson to more than five thousand undergraduates over the course of several years.

Review:

"This is an important case for undergraduate study, in large measure because it illuminates the modern debate over affirmative action. Brook Thomas recognizes this connection and helps the reader understand how the rhetoric of race used in Plessy remains influential. The narrative and accompanying historical documents provide a fresh and vivid look at one of the Supreme Court's most significant and controversial decisions."

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