The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy, Robert P. Jones
The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy, Robert P. Jones
List: $26.99 | Sale: $18.89
Club: $13.49

The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy
And the Path to a Shared American Future

Bestseller

Author: Robert P. Jones

Narrator: Holter Graham

Unabridged: 11 hr 23 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 09/05/2023


Synopsis

A New York Times Bestseller

Taking the story of white supremacy in America back to 1493, and examining contemporary communities in Mississippi, Minnesota, and Oklahoma for models of racial repair, The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy is “full of urgency and insight” (The New York Times) as it helps chart a new course toward a genuinely pluralistic democracy.

Beginning with contemporary efforts to reckon with the legacy of white supremacy in America, Jones returns to the fateful year when a little-known church doctrine emerged that shaped the way five centuries of European Christians would understand the “discovered” world and the people who populated it. Along the way, he shows us the connections between Emmett Till and the Spanish conquistador Hernando De Soto in the Mississippi Delta, between the lynching of three Black circus workers in Duluth and the mass execution of thirty-eight Dakota men in Makato, and between the murder of 300 African Americans during the burning of Black Wall Street in Tulsa and the Trail of Tears.

From this vantage point, Jones offers a “revelatory…searing, stirring outline” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) of how the enslavement of Africans was not America’s original sin but, rather, the continuation of acts of genocide and dispossession flowing from the first European contact with Native Americans. These deeds were justified by people who embraced the 15th-century Doctrine of Discovery: the belief that God had designated all territory not inhabited or controlled by Christians as their new promised land.

This “blistering, bracing, and brave” (Michael Eric Dyson) reframing of American origins explains how the founders of the United States could build the philosophical framework for a democratic society on a foundation of mass racial violence—and why this paradox survives today in the form of white Christian nationalism. Through stories of people navigating these contradictions in three communities, Jones illuminates the possibility of a new American future in which we finally fulfill the promise of a pluralistic democracy.

About Robert P. Jones

Robert P. Jones is the president and founder of Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and a leading scholar and commentator on religion and politics. Jones writes regularly on politics, culture, and religion for The Atlantic, TIME, and Religion News Service. He is frequently featured in major national media, such as MSNBC, CNN, NPR, The New York TimesThe Washington Post, and others. He holds a PhD in religion from Emory University and a MDiv from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is the author of White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity, which won a 2021 American Book Award, and The End of White Christian America, which won the 2019 Grawemeyer Award in Religion. He writes a regular Substack newsletter at RobertPJones.substack.com.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Jackie on October 02, 2023

What are the origins of white supremacy? Christianity! (Insert pretend shocked face here) I’m stunned that it’s taken so long to find a book that makes such clear and compelling connections to the two. Quite unfortunately, Christianity is the cause of nearly all modern day hate and strife when you bo......more

Goodreads review by Clif on October 09, 2023

This book tells the story of three different American communities trying to come to terms with histories of violent racism that occurred in the early 20th century: Tallahatchie County, MS; Duluth, MN; and Tulsa, OK. The book maintains that one cannot fully understand these contemporary currents with......more

Goodreads review by David on October 24, 2023

Absolutely phenomenal. A few years back the 1619 Project was released, arguing that the year 1619 made better sense as the beginning point of the American story than 1776, as this was the year the first slaves arrived. Since then the project has been criticized, with some criticism being the typical......more

Goodreads review by Carol on September 29, 2023

Everyone needs to read this book! It centers on three stories: the Mississippi Delta/Money, Mississippi, Duluth, Minnesota, and Greenwood/Tulsa, Oklahoma. The author takes the history beyond the horrific murders of Black men, women, and children in each of these places, to prior times of murder and......more

Goodreads review by Kimba on November 03, 2023

The insights of post-colonial and subaltern studies on how the doctrine of discovery was used to marginalize, enslave, or eradicate non-European peoples are incorporated into this popular history of the United States. To say, it is long overdue would be an understatement.......more