Description: Traces the multiple histories of race and racial thinking over time in France and in Francophone areas of the globe.
Review Quotes: "'The French are not racists like the Americans!' 'But are they French racists?' All of us, both French and American observers, have been bedeviled by some variant of this exchange I once had about the homeland of universal equality. This collection of transatlantic essays is the first systematic sounding of the praxis of race in French history. The contributions by American, Caribbean, and European-French specialists are universally fascinating and smart. The Color of Liberty is now the best thing on the subject in any language. We need it."--Herman Lebovics, author of True France: The Wars over Cultural Identity, 1900-1945