Book Review

The Third Reconstruction: America's Struggle for Racial Justice in the Twenty-First Century

by Peniel E. Joseph. Basic Books, 2022. 288 pages, hardcover. $27.00

In this book, distinguished race and democracy historian Peniel E. Joseph (professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs and the History Department, College of Liberal Arts, University of Texas at Austin) argues that that the period since 2008 has constituted the country's Third Reconstruction.

Joseph previously has published several books on the Black Power movement and a Stokely Carmichael biography. His Dark Days, Bright Nights: From Black Power to Barack Obama (2010) is utilized in 1,120 libraries according to WorldCat and Wikapedia.

Joseph, in The Third Reconstruction, thus gives a new interpretation of recent history. He submits that the racial conflicts in 2020 "marked the climax of a Third Reconstruction: a new struggle for citizenship and dignity for Black Americans, just as momentous as the movements that arose after the Civil War and during the civil rights era." The book traces this Third Reconstruction from the election of Barack Obama to the rise of Black Lives Matter to the 2021 failed assault on the Capitol.

 Book Review

Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life

By Karen E. Fields and Barbara J. Fields.

Verso, 2022 (2014). 310 pages, $19.95 paperback.

Just out in paperback, this edition of a widely praised work on race and racism is as British historian Robin Blackburn - author of The American Crucible: Slavery, Emancipation And Human Rights (Versdo, 2013) - has remarked:

“A most impressive work, tackling a demanding and important topic—the myth that we now live in a postracial society—in a novel, urgent, and compelling way. The authors dispel this myth by squarely addressing the paradox that racism is scientifically discredited but, like witchcraft before it, retains a social rationale in societies that remain highly unequal and averse to sufficiently critical engagement with their own history and traditions.”

Sociologist Karen E. Fields and historian Barbara J. Fields argue that though most people assume racism comes from a perception of human difference, the practice of racism produces the illusion of race, through what they call “racecraft.” This is so entwined with other forms of inequality in American life. Racecraft is so much a continuing part of American history, economic doctrine, politics, and daily thinking that the presence of racecraft itself goes unnoticed.

The authors hold that the reason that the promised post-racial age has not begun is partly because Americans have failed to develop a legitimate language for thinking about and discussing inequality. Until this is done, the racial age will continue.