Race and the Crisis of Humanism

The idea that humankind constituted a unity, albeit at different stages of development, was in the 19th century challenged with a new way of thinking. The savagery of certain races was no longer regarded as a stage in their progress towards civilisation, but as their permanent state. What caused this shift?

In Kay Andersons provocative new account, she argues that British colonial encounters in Australia from the late 1700s with the apparently unimproved condition of the Australian Aborigine, viewed against an understanding of humanity of the time (that is, as characterised by separation from nature), precipitated a crisis in existing ideas of what it meant to be human.

This lucid, intelligent and persuasive argument will be necessary reading for all scholars and upper-level students interested in the history and theories of race, critical human geography, anthropology, and Australian and environmental studies.