The House I Live In
Race In The American Century
By
Robert J. Norrell
 Nearly a century and a half has passed since the
Civil War brought the end of slavery, yet no aspect of American society remains
so problematic and controversial as relations between its black and white
citizens. Abraham Lincoln's unpopular decision to emancipate slaves in the
rebellious Confederate states caused a violent backlash, and African Americans
still protest mistreatment and pervasive inequality today. The era of the Civil
Rights movement has ended, with much of its agenda still unfinished. How far, in
fact, have we come since Lincoln's time? Can we see any progress toward racial
justice in America—or even hope of progress?
In
his magisterial, provocative new book THE HOUSE I LIVE IN, award-winning
historian Robert J. Norrell offers a sweeping narrative of the last 150 years of
race relations in American history—and a surprisingly positive message.
Norrell's deeply researched synthesis is a scholarly landmark comparable to Leon
Litwack's Been in the Storm So Long or Ira Berlin's Many Thousands
Gone, and is already attracting high praise from other historians.
Norrell challenges
the prevailing wisdom on many topics, including the origins of the Civil Rights
movement and the effect of the Cold War on efforts for racial justice. Readers
will be surprised to find controversial reappraisals of such figures as W.E.B.
Du Bois, Booker T. Washington—who has been, in Norrell's assessment, unfairly
maligned; and Martin Luther King, Jr.—who has been, conversely, excessively
sanctified.
THE HOUSE I LIVE IN concludes it is ideology, more than politics or
economics, that has most powerfully sculpted the landscape of race in America.
He offers critical analysis of the ideas of racists, such as novelist Thomas
Dixon, and examines how the war against Naziism fatally undermined the ideology
of race supremacy that underpinned Jim Crow. Norrell argues with both authority
and passion about the damaging role popular culture and mass media played after
1965, when images of violence and crime worked against racial reform. But
ultimately, Norrell counters those who see American race relations as a history
of failure and perpetual injustice, and argues that the chauvinism experienced
in the past does not mean that the future holds no promise. Despite our
continuing conflicts, we are closer than ever to fulfilling the promise made by
Lincoln at Gettysburg.
About the Author
Robert J. Norrell holds the Bernadotte Schmitt Chair of Excellence in History at
the University of Tennessee. His book. Reaping the Whirlwind: The Civil
Rights Movement in Tuskegee, won the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Book Award.
The House I Live
In: Race In The American Century
By Robert J. Norrell
Oxford University Press
Price: $35.00
ISBN: 019-507345-2
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