The Racial Contract

by Charles W. Mills

Book Overview

A very important book.... The Racial Contract has the potential to radically challenge many of us to reevaluate how we think about social contract theory. As well, to take the arguments that Mills makes is to be prepared to rethink about the concept of race and the structure of our political systems. This is a very important book indeed, and should be a welcome addition to the ongoing discussions surrounding social contract theory.―Teaching...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0801484634
• ISBN13: 9780801484636
• Release Date: June 1999
• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.4" x 8.4"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

A Necessary Read

If you are engaged with social justice, then you must read this book. In succinct language, direct form and powerful revelations, Professor Mills has helped me to better understand structures that need to be changed and strategies for making that happen.

An Essential Read!

I'm not sure this book needs much of a review. Most folks who have gotten this far are probably already predisposed towards buying this book anyway. Other reviews of this book treat the book exactly the way Mills has covered the subject matter. I will not be as eloquent. This book is quite simply the most truthful book ever written on the subject. "The Racial Contract" should be required reading for everyone that can read. Its message is not finger pointing, or condescending in tone. It is not apologetic at all. It could be a wake up call for Eurocentric civilization... if it is read!

Not Deconstruction but Still a Tour de Force

"White supremacy is the unnamed political system that has made the modern world what it is today." So begins The Racial Contract, and in the mere 133 pages that follow this line the book deftly marshals evidence from the Western political tradition and general history to effectively place race at the heart of political theory. It centrally elucidates the ways in which the social contract has unspoken suppositions which in actuality make it a handshake between whites to exploit the lands, labors and bodies of nonwhites. These suppositions include the understanding that the peoples and places it "races" are not fully human--an idea that has legitimated 500 years of Western atrocities and exploitations exacted upon countries with peoples of color. Thus it also calls into question the popular idea that racism is merely a misguided worldview, and says rather that it is solidly within the epistemological, political and moral understandings of the West. Mills places his theory firmly within the liberal conception of rights and so explores the ways in which such rights (as to life and labors) have been systematically alienated from nonwhites. Hence, those who have called this work a "deconstruction" or anti-Enlightenment are quite wrong. Mills: "Though it may appear to be such, the 'Racial Contract' is not a 'deconstruction' of the social contract.... The 'Racial Contract' is really...pro-Enlightenment...and antipostmodernist" (129). The reason that this is so important to Mills' project is that he is not proposing that ethics are relative or that there are no ethical norms that can coherently be placed at the center of a political project. He proposes that there are such norms but that they have been systematically denied to nonwhites. He also puts forth the very unpostmodern idea that there is a correct metanarrative of history--one that identifies white supremacy and conquest as the unnamed political system making the world what it is today. Hence, this work is more correctly placed in the tradition of the "radical and to-be-completed Enlightenment" (129). (In other words, if prospective readers are looking for contemporary continental thought--go to [my favorites] Zizek, Foucault or Fanon, not to Mills.)I hope that this does not sound too academic or technical. I have read plenty of dry and boring theoretical texts, and this simply is not that. I stayed up until four in the morning finishing The Racial Contract in one sitting--it is perhaps my favorite book read thus far in college. Anyone concerned about the problems of race--whether familiar with political theory or not--can (and should) read this book and get a tremendous amount from it.

a must read

this book really opened my eyes....being a philosophy major, i have always been bombarded with western european thought and its influences on culture. the thing that has always been praised the most is the wonder of the Enlightenment. it has been heralded as doing more for the individual than any other age, BUT.....mills clearly and passionately shows how this is simply not the case...read it

Deconstruction at its Best

If you are a student of Western philosophy, particularly Social Contract theory, this book will help you to see the white supremacy inherent in the document. Mills asserts that just as fish can't see water, white men can't see the existence of a white polity here in America. He is clear and thorough in his writing, while keeping the work enjoyable. This book will definitely change your understanding of our government, so if you are interested in finding the "truth" or making positive changes in our political system, The Racial Contract is a requisite first step.