The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy

Stoddard, Lothrop, 1883-1950Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 1.5

Word count: 518K words
Chapters: 52

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy by Lothrop StoddardAuthor: Stoddard, Lothrop, 1883-1950,Language: English, Class: HT: Social sciences: Communities, Classes, Races, Release Date: Sep 12, 2011

Editor's review

This book is a racist treatise published in the early twentieth century by Lothrop Stoddard; its central thesis is evident from the title: the so-called "rising tide of color" poses a threat to "white world-supremacy." As a historical document, its value lies not in the correctness of its views but in its complete presentation of the intellectual landscape in which Western colonialism, racial hierarchy, and Social Darwinism interwove; it is primary material for studying racist discourse, immigration anxiety, and geopolitical imagination. It should be read with critical distance, as an ideological specimen to be decoded rather than an objective analysis. Many of its assertions lack evidentiary basis by today's scholarly standards and carry obvious racial bias, making it more suitable as supplementary reading in intellectual history, colonial history, or race studies courses, used alongside introductory guides and rebuttal literature. General readers who browse it out of curiosity should also be aware in advance of the nature of its stance, to avoid misreading it as neutral historical prediction.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Scholars and students studying the intellectual history of racism and colonial discourse
Instructors who need primary sources to analyze early twentieth-century Western racial ideas in their courses
Serious readers interested in the evolution of intellectual history and geopolitical imagination

Not a good fit for

General readers seeking objective demographic or international-relations analysis
Beginners who are easily influenced by the book's racial hierarchy arguments and lack critical background
Readers looking for light entertainment or a novel-like reading experience

Reading tips

Read the preface and table of contents first to clarify the author's stance and the era of writing, then proceed to the main text
Read alongside works in critical race theory or colonial history, taking rebuttal notes as you go
Treat the book's assertions as historical material rather than conclusions, focusing on recording its rhetorical strategies and presuppositions
After finishing, write a short review identifying which views have been refuted by modern scholarship and why

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Do the views in this book still hold today?

No. The book's analytical framework centered on racial hierarchy and "white supremacy" has been widely refuted by modern anthropology, genetics, and history. Its value lies in serving as intellectual-history material that helps us understand how racism in the early twentieth century was packaged as academic argument, rather than in providing reliable factual judgments.

Is this book suitable for general readers to read directly?

Direct reading without preparation is not recommended. The book's racial bias is obvious, and without background knowledge it is easy to mistake outdated arguments for neutral analysis. If reading for research or writing purposes, it is best to first understand the author's era and relevant critical literature, and to read with a questioning attitude.

What should I pay attention to while reading?

Pay attention to how the author constructs a "threat" narrative, which rhetorical and statistical techniques he uses, and which groups he essentializes. Connecting these argumentative methods with the immigration policies and colonial rule of the time is more valuable than memorizing specific conclusions.

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About the author

Stoddard, Lothrop, 1883-1950 Author · American · 1883–1950

Lothrop Stoddard (1883–1950) was an American writer and historian. Public information about his early education, professional career, and public offices is limited; his reputation rests chiefly on two books on civilization and race. In The New World of Islam he examined the situation and direction of the Islamic world amid modern upheavals, while in The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy he discussed the rise and fall of races and civilizations. These works carry pronounced prejudices and racism of their time and have long been criticized by scholars, yet because they record popular early twentieth-century Western ideas about race, population, and civilization, they are still cited as sources in intellectual history and retain some documentary value.