Combining classical Marxism, psychoanalysis, and the new labor history pioneered by E. P. Thompson and Herbert Gutman, David Roediger’s widely acclaimed book provides an original study of the formative years of working-class racism in the United States. This, he argues, cannot be explained simply with reference to economic advantage; rather, white working-class racism is underpinned by a complex series of psychological and ideological mechanisms that reinforce racial stereotypes, and thus help to forge the identities of white workers in opposition to Blacks.

In a new preface, Roediger reflects on the reception, influence, and critical response to The Wages of Whiteness, while Kathleen Cleaver’s insightful introduction hails the importance of a work that has become a classic.

“At last an American labor historian realizes that white workers have a racial identity that matters as race matters to workers who are not white.” — Nell Irvin Painter, Princeton University

“Roediger's exciting book makes us understand what it means to see oneself as white in a new way. An extremely important and insightful book.“ — Lawrence Glickman, The Nation

David Roediger is Kendrick Babcock Chair of History at the University of Illinois. Among his books are Our Own Time: A History of American Labor and the Working Day (with Philip S. Foner), and Towards the Abolition of Whiteness. He is the editor of Fellow Worker: The Life of Fred Thompson, The North and Slavery and Black on White: Black Writers on What It Means to Be White as well as a new edition of Covington Hall’s Labor Struggles in the Deep South.  His articles have appeared in New Left Review, Against the Current, Radical History Review, History Workshop Journal, The Progressive and Tennis. His current research is on immigration and racial formation in the U.S.

Third Edition

Paper
ISBN-13: 978 1 84467 145 8
US$19.95 / £12.99
CAN$25

Cloth
ISBN-13: 978 1 84467 126 7
US$95 / £55 / CAN$119