How the Irish Became White [Paperback]

'&from time to time a study comes along that truly can be called path breaking, seminal, essential, a must read. How the Irish Became Whiteis such a study.'John Bracey, W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies, University of Massachussetts, Amherst

The Irish came to America in the eighteenth century, fleeing a homeland under foreign occupation and a caste system that regarded them as the lowest form of humanity. In the new country  a land of opportunity  they found a very different form of social hierarchy, one that was based on the color of a persons skin. Noel Ignatievs 1995 book  the first published work of one of Americas leading and most controversial historians  tells the story of how the oppressed became the oppressors; how the new Irish immigrants achieved acceptance among an initially hostile population only by proving that they could be more brutal in their oppression of African Americans than the nativists. This is the story of How the Irish Became White.

Introduction to the Routledge Classics Edition.  List of Illustrations.  Acknowledgements.  Introduction  Part 1: Something in the Air  Part 2: White Negroes and Smoked Irish  Part 3: The Transubstantiation of an Irish Revolutionary  Part 4: They Swung their Picks  Part 5: The Tumultuous Republic  Part 6: From Protestant Ascendancy to White Republic

Noel Ignatiev(b. 1940) is best known for his call to abolish the white race. He was a co-founder and co-eló8