Bodies Complexioned: Human Variation and Racism in Early Modern English Culture, c. 16001750

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Description

Skin-tones mattered in early modern England. Indexing health, social status, religious affiliation and national allegiance, they helped explain (away) poverty, colonialism, war and slavery. Drawing physical distinctions as a means to power has a complex history - one belying racism's assumption that such distinctions are natural or timeless. -- .

Reviews

'What did his blackness mean to early modern Englishmen This is the kind of complex issue regarding chromatics (color) and ethnology that Mark Dawson examines in Bodies Complexioned.'
Journal of British Studies

Author Bio

Mark S. Dawson is Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History at the Australian National University, Canberra