Off White: Central and Eastern Europe and the Global History of Race - Hardcover

by Catherine Baker (Editor), Bogdan C. Iacob (Editor), Anikó Imre (Editor)

Off white centres the role of race and whiteness to rewrite the history of Central and Eastern Europe and illuminate the development, operation and enduring appeal of white nationalisms within racial capitalism.

Back Jacket

Off white uncovers the hidden history of race and whiteness in Central and Eastern Europe, including Russia, tracing the ideological work of whiteness back to the region's constitutive roots in nation-building and global colonialism. The collection uncovers the work of race and racism through the discourses and practices that have rendered them transparent and natural. It does so through studies of the international system of states and empires, from national self-determination struggles and geographic exploration to diplomacy and cultural representation in literature, film, media industries, art, and music; in intellectual and academic discourses; and across the many avenues of articulating banal nationalism, including everyday artefacts and language.

This is an alternative history of Central and Eastern Europe that breaks through the shield of racial innocence in what may be the last geopolitical stronghold where white supremacy is still unacknowledged as the defining mechanism of state power, social hierarchisation, and global interconnection.

Author Biography

Catherine Baker is Reader in 20th-Century History at the University of Hull.
Bogdan C. Iacob is Researcher at the 'Nicolae Iorga' Institute of History, Romanian Academy
Anikó Imre is Professor of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California.
James Mark is Professor of History at the University of Exeter.