From Class to Race: Essays in White Marxism and Black Radicalism

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Rowman & Littlefield, 2003 - History - 285 pages
In From Class to Race, Charles Mills maps the theoretical route that brought him to the innovative conceptual framework outlined in his academic bestseller The Racial Contract (1997). Mills argues for a new critical theory that develops the insights of the black radical political tradition. While challenging conventional interpretations of key Marxist concepts and claims, the author contends that Marxism has been 'white' insofar as it has failed to recognize the centrality of race and white supremacy to the making of the modern world. By appealing to both mainstream liberal values and the structuralism traditionally associated with the left, Mills asserts that critical race theory can radicalize the mainstream Enlightenment and develop a new kind of contractarianism that deals frontally with race and other forms of social oppression rather than evading them.

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Contents

Marxism in Theory and Practice
1
Ideology in Marx and Engels Revisited and Revised
5
Is It Immaterial That Theres a Material in Historical Materialism?
37
Marxism Ideology and Moral Objectivism
59
The Moral Epistemology of Stalinism
87
Race and Class
119
Under Class Under Standings
121
European Specters
145
Critical Race Theory
171
White Supremacy as Sociopolitical System
175
White Supremacy and Racial Justice
193
The Racial Contract as Methodology
217
References
249
Index
269
About the Author
283
Copyright

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About the author (2003)

Charles Mills is professor of philosophy at the University of Illinois-Chicago. A specialist in Marxism, African-American philosophy, and critical race theory, he is the author of The Racial Contract (1997) and Blackness Visible (1998).