Racism

W. E. B. DuBois wrote in 1903 that "the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line—the relation of the darker to the lighter races in the various areas of the world in which they interact." As the century draws to its close, this remains true; the last few years have witnessed a growth in academic interest in racism and an increasing general awareness of various kinds of racial conflict and violence in areas around the globe. This Oxford Reader provides a critical overview of the historical development and contemporary forms of racist ideas and institutions. It brings together material from different theoretical perspectives in an attempt to make sense of the ways in which racism has exerted such a powerful influence on the history of humanity.

Martin Bulmer is Foundation Fund Professor of Sociology at the University of Surrey. He is the editor of Ethnic and Racial Studies, in which he has been involved since 1988. His most recent book is Citizenship Today, edited with Tony Rees (1996) and he is Academic Director of the Question Bank, part of the ESRC Centre for Applied Social Surveys, established in 1995. He has wide experience of editing and publishing in British social science, and previously held a social policy appointment at LSE for 17 years, where he taught the main undergraduate course in race and ethnic relations for many years.

John Solomos is Professor of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Southampton, before which he was Reader in Public Policy, Birkbeck College, London, and a Research Fellow at the Centre for Research on Ethnic Relations, University of Warwick. He has researched and written widely on the politics of race and social change, the development of new forms of racism in contemporary Euro