Science, sexuality, and race in the United States and Australia, 1780s-1890s
By: Gregory D. Smithers.
Series: Routledge advances in American history -- 2
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2009
Place of publication: New York, NY
Language: eng
Number of pages: 298
ISBN-13: 9780415989770
Subjects: Frontier and pioneer life -- United States; Whites -- Race identity -- United States -- History -- 19th century; Science -- Social aspects -- United States -- History -- 19th century; Sex -- Social aspects -- United States -- History -- 19th century; Frontier and pioneer life -- Australia; Whites -- Race identity -- Australia -- History -- 19th century; Science -- Social aspects -- Australia -- History -- 19th century; Sex -- Social aspects -- Australia -- History -- 19th century; United States -- Race relations -- History -- 19th century; Australia -- Race relations -- History -- 19th century
Description: "This book combines transnational history with the comparative analysis of racial formation and reproductive sexuality in the settler colonial spaces of the United States and British Australia. Specifically, the book places "whiteness," and the changing definition of what it meant to be white in nineteenth-century America and Australia, at the center of our historical understanding of racial and sexual identities." "In both the United States and Australia, "whiteness" was defined in opposition to the imagined cultural and biological inferiority of the "Indian," "Negro," and "Aboriginal savage." Moreover, Euro-Americans and Euro-Australians shared a common belief that "whiteness" was synonymous with the extension of settler colonial civilization. Despite this, two very different understandings of "whiteness" emerged in the nineteenth century. The book therefore asks why these different racial understandings of "whiteness"--And the quest to create culturally and racially homogeneous settler civilizations - developed in the United States and Australia."--Jacket.
Notes: "Simultaneously published in the UK"--T.p. verso.

Includes bibliographical references and index.