20th century
A01=Leah N. Gordon
academia
african american studies
Author_Leah N. Gordon
Category=JBFA
Category=JBFA1
Category=JBSL
Category=NHK
college
cultural anthropology
discrimination
education policy
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
individualism
injustice
intellectual history
mccarthyism
postwar america
power dynamics
psychology
public schools
race relations
racial issues
racism
segregation
social justice
society
students
teachers
united states
white prejudice
Product details
- ISBN 9780226238449
- Weight: 510g
- Dimensions: 17 x 24mm
- Publication Date: 20 May 2015
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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Americans believe strongly in the socially transformative power of education, and the idea that we can challenge racial injustice by reducing white prejudice has long been a core component of this faith. How did we get here? In this first-rate intellectual history, Leah N. Gordon Jumps into this and other big questions about race, power, and social justice. To answer these questions, From Power to Prejudice examines American academia-both black and white-in the 1940s and '50s. Gordon presents four competing visions of "the race problem" and documents how an individualistic paradigm, which presented white attitudes as the source of racial injustice, gained traction. A number of factors, Gordon shows, explain racial individualism's postwar influence: individuals were easier to measure than social forces; psychology was well funded; studying political economy was difficult amid McCarthyism; and individualism was useful in legal attacks on segregation. Highlighting vigorous midcentury debate over the meanings of racial justice and equality, From Power to Prejudice reveals how one particular vision of social justice won out among many contenders.
Leah N. Gordon is assistant professor of education and (by courtesy) of history at Stanford University.
