Tag: Sharon Block

  • This is a book about the endeavor of racial classification in the service of racism.

  • At the opening of “Colonial Complexions: Race and Bodies in Eighteenth-Century America,” Sharon Block poses two provocative questions: “What were the meanings of black, white, and red in the colonial eighteenth century; and how did Anglo-American colonists describe people’s appearance?” (1) To answer these queries Block presents a cultural history race in Britain’s 18th century…

  • “Colonial Complexions” will be an enduring contribution to digital age historical methodology and interpretations of early Atlantic newspapers as digitized eighteenth-century British newspapers and databases of British runaway advertisements continue to become available.

  • In “Colonial Complexions,” historian Sharon Block examines how Anglo-Americans built racial ideologies out of descriptions of physical appearance.