Race and the Enlightenment: A Reader

Eze argues that the Enlightenment's racial legacy was a philosophical vocabulary ("race," "progress," "civilization," "savagery," "nature") that reinforced and presupposed important "analytical categories" adopted by subsequent scientific, philosophical, and anthropological studies of race. The book focuses on texts from the last decades of the seventeenth century; only four (by Linneaus, Buffon, and Hume) were published before 1770 and just one (Hegel's Lectures on the Philosophy of World History) after 1800. Eze is mainly concerned with the triumvirate of Hume, Hegel, and (especially) Kant: the other readings provide background to and display the influences on and the influences of those philosophers.

Unfortunately, most of Eze's selections are too brief to help readers understand the "analytical categories" of race that are central to Eze's racial critique of the Enlightenment. Many crucial theoretical notions are passed over or covered in little detail in the primary texts and in Eze's editorial material. Teachers or students pursuing a deeper investigation will have to look elsewhere, and they will lament Eze's editorial practice of alluding to important passages without providing citations, the absence of detailed citations of the texts anthologized, and the lack of a comprehensive bibliography of primary and secondary literature.


Incredibly interesting   April 15, 1999
 2 out of 6 found this review helpful

This book collects, for the first time, writings by all of the major authors during the period of Enlightenment. Most readers will be shocked by the severe lack of politcal-correctness displayed by these writers, but none-the-less it gives one an accurate idea of what Europeans first impressions of non-whites were. Africa, the anarchaic tribal continent, was seen as both a wonder and a threat. Philosophers like Hegel were at once amazed and revolted to discover that these "strange creatures" on the "myterious continent" had yet to develop the wheel at the time of European expansion on that continent. Fascinating, shocking, but above all, a must for any true student of The Enlightenment.


A Must For Professors, and Students of Philosophy   February 4, 1999
 5 out of 9 found this review helpful

I read this book in my African-American Philosophy class. I couldn't believe the writings of Hume, Kant and Hegel. I never stop to think that their philosophical systems were exclusive to Europeans. The Enlightenment philosophiers attitudes were shaped by travelers stories, geographical location, and lack of understanding about other cultures besides their own.

Hegel give a justification for "colonialsim" and "imperialism" that will "knock your socks off." Kant and Hume recognizes Africas as "inferior to whites."

This book is a must for philosophiers. I believe it will help students to understand the "exclusive" and arrogant attitudes of Enlightenment philosophiers.