How the Irish Became White (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780415963091)

'...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.

Author: Noel Ignatiev
ISBN-10: 0415963095
ISBN-13: 9780415963091
Publisher: Routledge
Language: English
Published: 09/11/2008
Pages: 276
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.70lbs
Size: 7.50h x 5.00w x 0.90d

Review Citation(s):
Reference and Research Bk News 02/01/2009 pg. 71