Race and Racism in the Global European World Before 1800

Abstract

AbstractHistories of race and racism for the period before 1800 have been inclined to focus on the Atlantic world, particularly Africa and America. This focus has resulted in a tendency to think of race primarily in terms of slavery and skin colour. In addition, the problems of finding a suitable vocabulary for race and racism – one that is not anachronistic yet recognises the enormity of early modern slavery and genocide – have produced a degree of confusion that obstructs clear understanding of race's early‐modern progenitors. This article argues for a concentration on ‘racism’ rather than on the heavily overdetermined ‘race’, and for the refocusing of studies of race and racism onto the ‘global European world’. This context encompasses the Atlantic as just one part – albeit the most major, in the period before 1800 – of European colonial endeavours and global interactions. As the pre‐eminent maritime and global imperial power after 1763, Britain ought to be firmly in the sights of scholars seeking to understand Europe's most pernicious invention.