The Invention of the White Race Volume I: Racial Oppression and Social Control - Theodore W. Allen

In his seminal two-volume work, The Invention of the White Race, Allen details the creation of the 'white race' by the ruling class as a method of social control, in response to labor unrest precipitated by Bacon's Rebellion. Distinguishing European Americans from African Americans within the laboring class, white privileges enforced the myth of the white race through the years and has been central to maintaining ruling-class domination over the entire working class. Since publication in the mid-nineties, Volume One has become indispensible in debates on the origins of racial oppression in America. Volume One utilizes Irish history to show the relativity of race and racial oppression as a form of social control.