cover image Open Wound: The Long View of Race in America

Open Wound: The Long View of Race in America

William McKee Evans, . . Univ. of Illinois, $34.95 (330pp) ISBN 978-0-252-03427-5

Evans (Ballots and Fence Rails ) ranges from Spanish colonization in the New World to the economic disparities of the current century in this scholarly interpretation of “how racial ideas have functioned to justify inequality” in the U.S. Drawing heavily on Marxist theories and the political philosophy of Antonio Gramsci, the author dissects how society in early America was divided into two racial categories, where “the mark dividing the haves from the have-nots was... color.” He examines the overlapping history of class and race from the American Revolution through the Civil War, but as the book nears the recent past, history is painted in large swaths, with the last half of the 20th century, including the civil rights movement, receiving scant attention. Evans's glancing look at neo-liberalism and contemporary ecological crises are downright confusing in this context, and nowhere near as explored (or explained) as the historical section of the book. While the prose is readable, the book draws heavily on political and economic theory; still, the tenacious reader will be treated to intriguing observations on the history of American race relations. (Apr.)