Nobility and the Making of Race in Eighteenth-Century Britain

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Nobility and the Making of Race in Eighteenth-Century Britain focuses on 18th-century Britain and Ireland at a time when race theory as we know it today was steadily emerging in the realm of natural philosophy to examine the structural relationship between nobility and race. This ground-breaking book examines texts from the fields of naturalism, political philosophy, medicine, and colonial venture, as well as interrogating works of drama and literature, in order to track how climate-based understandings of human variety at this time became increasingly imbued with noble traditions of genealogical purity and hierarchies of descent. This process, the book argues, allowed British naturalists and wider society to understand global populations according to an already familiar pattern of genealogical inequality, and offered the proponents of race theory a ready made model of natural supremacy. In this highly original and meticulously researched book, Tim McInerney explains why nobility and race developed in the way they did and how the premise of each promoted a certain idea of superiority. The result is a necessary in-depth understanding of how genealogical exclusivity works as a power strategy, vital to students and scholars alike.

Reviews

What McInerney accomplishes in this book is a significant contribution to our understanding of how and from where race theory developed during the eighteenth century. -- Ross Lowton, King's College London, UK * Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies *

Author Bio

Tim McInerney is Senior Lecturer in British and Irish civilisation at Universit Paris 8 Vincennes Saint Denis., France.