Title: The complexion of race : categories of difference in eighteenth-century British culture /
Authors: Wheeler, Roxann.
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press,
Year: 2000
Subjects: Race awareness Great Britain History; English fiction History and criticism; Difference (Psychology) History; Race in literature; Great Britain Race relations History; Great Britain Social conditions; Great Britain Civilization
Abstract: Wheeler (English, Ohio State U.) compares Enlightenment science's speculations on human variety in natural history with accounts in civil histories, travel literature, and fiction, finding that black skin was not the most damning characteristic used by Brits to elevate themselves above the colonized. While Brits did prize paleness, Wheeler shows th.