Christopher Kyriakides

Reviews of Race Defaced

"Race Defaced shakes up the status quo in the field of race--and social theory more broadly--delivering an exciting, forceful challenge to prominent thought. A major contribution."--Alana Lentin, University of Western Sydney

"It's refreshing to see an ambitious work that steps back from the immediate cauldron of race and places it in a broader political, historical, and theoretical framework. Kyriakides and Torres offer a compelling challenge to the current orthodoxies in this bold, wide-ranging critical analysis."--Stephen Small, University of California, Berkeley

Book Description

From Manifest Destiny to the White Man's Burden, from Harold Macmillan to Tony Blair, from J.F. Kennedy to Barack Obama--the historical development of racial doctrine has been closely connected to the relationship between radical and conservative politics. This book compares different forms of racism and anti-racism in the United States and Britain from the 19th century to today, situating the development of racial doctrine within the political movements of the modern capitalist world order.

In conversation with current debates, this work places the treatment of racialized human beings within a wider dynamic of capitalist exploitation. It unpacks the influence of anti-emancipatory thought on "race relations" and argues that there is a consensus of thought across the political spectrum--from radical to conservative--underpinned by the contemporary acceptance of the impossibility of human emancipation. Ultimately, Race Defaced is a heretical intervention that challenges both conservative and radical orthodoxies.