Enjoy fast, free delivery, exclusive deals, and award-winning movies & TV shows with Prime
Try Prime
and start saving today with fast, free delivery
Amazon Prime includes:
Fast, FREE Delivery is available to Prime members. To join, select "Try Amazon Prime and start saving today with Fast, FREE Delivery" below the Add to Cart button.
Amazon Prime members enjoy:- Cardmembers earn 5% Back at Amazon.com with a Prime Credit Card.
- Unlimited Free Two-Day Delivery
- Streaming of thousands of movies and TV shows with limited ads on Prime Video.
- A Kindle book to borrow for free each month - with no due dates
- Listen to over 2 million songs and hundreds of playlists
- Unlimited photo storage with anywhere access
Important: Your credit card will NOT be charged when you start your free trial or if you cancel during the trial period. If you're happy with Amazon Prime, do nothing. At the end of the free trial, your membership will automatically upgrade to a monthly membership.
-25% $20.09$20.09
Ships from: Amazon.com Sold by: Amazon.com
$15.33$15.33
FREE delivery May 21 - 22
Ships from: textbooks_source Sold by: textbooks_source
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
OK
How the Irish Became White (Routledge Classics) 1st Edition
Purchase options and add-ons
'…from time to time a study comes along that truly can be called ‘path breaking,’ ‘seminal,’ ‘essential,’ a ‘must read.’ How the Irish Became White is such a study.' John Bracey, W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies, University of Massachussetts, Amherst
The Irish came to America in the eighteenth century, fleeing a homeland under foreign occupation and a caste system that regarded them as the lowest form of humanity. In the new country – a land of opportunity – they found a very different form of social hierarchy, one that was based on the color of a person’s skin. Noel Ignatiev’s 1995 book – the first published work of one of America’s leading and most controversial historians – tells the story of how the oppressed became the oppressors; how the new Irish immigrants achieved acceptance among an initially hostile population only by proving that they could be more brutal in their oppression of African Americans than the nativists. This is the story of How the Irish Became White.
- ISBN-100415963095
- ISBN-13978-0415963091
- Edition1st
- Publication dateSeptember 1, 2008
- LanguageEnglish
- Dimensions5 x 0.65 x 7.5 inches
- Print length272 pages
Books with Buzz
Discover the latest buzz-worthy books, from mysteries and romance to humor and nonfiction. Explore more
Frequently bought together
Similar items that may deliver to you quickly
Editorial Reviews
Review
About the Author
Noel Ignatiev (b. 1940) is best known for his call to abolish the white race. He was a co-founder and co-editor of the journal Race Traitor (an anthology from which won an American Book Award), and a co-founder of the New Abolitionist Society. He teaches history at the Massachusetts College of Art. American History
Product details
- Publisher : Routledge; 1st edition (September 1, 2008)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 272 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0415963095
- ISBN-13 : 978-0415963091
- Item Weight : 10.1 ounces
- Dimensions : 5 x 0.65 x 7.5 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #88,683 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #20 in U.S. Immigrant History
- #258 in Discrimination & Racism
- #472 in Historical Study (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on Amazon-
Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
As Ignatiev shows, race is a social construct, and it was therefore at the time by no means 'obvious' that the Irish were white, as would be the case now according to these classifications. On the contrary, the Irish were especially from the time of the Irish Potato Famine (1845-1855) on desperately poor laborers, which at the time meant they were not likely to be seen as white. So the Irish had to become white, through struggle of their own. This was only possible by participating in the oppression of the class automatically put on the lowest rank of the urban ladder, the black workers. Whether slave or freeman, the Irish hated, despised, and persecuted them, and in the cauldron of this racial antagonism, the Irish working class was bleached white in the eyes of the ruling class.
The usual arguments about the relations of race and class in America are shown to be fallacious. Black workers were not strikebreakers per se, but had to become strikebreakers because they were systematically excluded by the Irish unions. Whenever the black population organized itself and formed its independent spheres of power, the Irish attempted to destroy these. The Irish vigorously supported slavery and the Southern cause, only going so far as to reject secession, which would leave them on their own facing Northern capital. When the Civil War increasingly turned toward the cause of abolition, the Irish of New York City revolted in one of the 19th Century's greatest riots. No black worker was even permitted to work alongside an Irish one by the latter, or they would strike on the spot or leave their job.
This is not because the Irish were or are inclined to evil or prejudice more than anyone else. It is precisely because the Irish were the most despised of all 'free' labor, and yet were exalted above the blacks. As Ignatiev showed, in late 18th Century Ireland itself, even very poor Protestant Irish considered themselves racially superior to the Catholic Irish. Their feelings of superiority were precisely all they had, and the British did all they could to encourage it, since division within a class greatly eased their occupation. The same phenomenon prevailed in America, only there unity was actually impossible, since the blacks had been brought to America involuntarily whereas all others were voluntary settlers. This incompatibility of viewpoint made the citizenship status of blacks dubious from the very start of the existence of the American Colonies, and as a result, the blacks were not opportunistically, but permanently consigned to the lowest rank within American labor (with Native Americans for the most part excluded from these ranks altogether). For any settler to prove himself 'white', it then became necessary to partake in and support this system.
Not so therefore the popular social-democratic myth that capital managed to conspire to divide the workers, or confused them to their 'true' interests. Although they would have been better off united, the very foundations of the American state were laid on the basis of this racial division. As long as America was and remains founded upon it, original African-American workers as a racial class could and can never advance beyond the lowest rung of the ladder, nor could and can Hispanics or the original Asian immigrants. Conversely, no settler or his descendant could or can fall to that level unless they are willing to reject the mess of pottage called 'whiteness' for which they have exchanged their birthright of equality and solidarity among the working class. As Ignatiev shows, in the 19th Century, the number of such workers was very few indeed. Are there more now? Then let them show themselves.
However, I was disappointed that the story pretty much stopped at or even before the Civil War and didn't even get much into the role of thIrish in the Civil War. I think there was a lot more to be told.
Not an easy read.
The most powerful line in the book is how slaves were not allowed to work on building Railroad bridges because they had monetary value. Irish, on the other hand, would not be missed if they fell to their deaths during the dangerous construction. Irish therefore had lower status than slaves in the mid 1800's.
Top reviews from other countries
From this masterpiece I learnt how Irish people were treated just as badly as black people, for being Celtic and not Anglo-Saxon. It seems like such a strange thing to consider in today’s times but it’s interesting to see, how Irish people were finally accepted.
The book details how necessary it was for white Americans who considered themselves Anglo Saxons, to create a racial hierarchy, which included Irish people. To justify the enslavement and inhumane treatment of black people and slaves. As for a time Irish people and black people were treated just as poorly and even lived in the same underprivileged and unhygienic areas.
We all talk about Irish slavery which existed but we never speak about how readily Irish people, were quick to throw their black friends and neighbours under the bus. To fit in with what it meant to be white. Even going so far as to treat black people worst to prove that they deserved their new place in society.
And that’s the shame of it. The Irish people in America were happy to ill treat another group of people who had experienced the same things as them, to “fit in.”
That was the most difficult to read.
I hope that with important works like this, we can all break down “white supremacy.” And learn that we all the same race, and need to respect and honour each other. We are all one species and we will never evolve if we can’t get past skin colour. But in order to do that we must understand the past, to heal our present, to create a better future.
Burying ones head in the sand and pretending like Irish people didn’t participate in the barbaric treatment of black people, doesn’t help anyone.
The book starts with some interesting background on Daniel O'Connell in particular, and how, although he was a big supporter of the abolition of slavery, ultimately he was more concerned with Home Role, and much of the financial support eminating from America was from slave landownders in the South. There is an interesting snippet of a letter from Engels to Marx where he labels O'Connell as a moneyed aristocrat and two faced Whig.
There is statement that while the Irish could not rise to the level of white man in America, they refused to fall to the level of the black man. That is depsite the fact that they most often lived in the same accommodation as them in northern cities. Interestingly, the Irish came from farms but never moved westwards, most likely as they did not have the money. Instead they competed with black people for the lowest jobs in sociery in cities. They formed the early unions not only to improve workers rights, but really to secure the jobs for white Irish people and not for black people. That allowed the Irish to develop positions of power, as too did the later entrance of Irishmen into the police force but not blacks. From there the Irish were able to use their power to force their particular desires on the communities if needed. There are some interesting snippets that the fault lines were not always black or white, Irish or not, but in fact there was plenty of fighting between Munster men and Leinster men too, that the lines were still very parochial even in the US.
Furthermore there was in fact plenty of mingling in pubs and society between black people and Irish people, who often shared the same bars and pubs. There are a huge amount of examples in the book of individual stories and people who intermingled.
Of course slavery and politics are hugely important to the story. The Irish have - and do - vote unwaveringly for the Democratic party. Early on this was largely because they did not want slavery to end. Rather than this being born primarily out of a position of racism, it was more self preservation. The Irish feared that the end of slavery would release millions of slaves into the job market and lower their own value. It was an enormously selfish position but one which must be looked at in context. Everyone was scrapping for their own lives at this point in time.
And furthermore it is not like the Irish lives had greater value. Quite often Irish were sent into the do the jobs which were do dangerous to risk slaves (like layinf railroad through a marsh). A slaveowner had paid big investments up front for slaves - they were not willing to risk them so easily. The death of an Irishman cost nothing. There are also some interesting arguments that some of those against slavery were against it rather for economic reasons. Adam Smith thought being a slave made a worker lazy as they did not have to work for their wage and were guaranteed bed and breakfast (a bit of an odd position but he was in the UK rather than South Carolina).
At some points in the book it becomes a little repetitive with the stories but there are snippets of gold in here. A well worthwhile read.