Bodies Complexioned: Human Variation and Racism in Early Modern English Culture, c. 1600-1750

Bodily contrasts such as hair, eyes, and skin color, as well as facial and skeletal shapes, were used by the English in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries to discriminate between themselves and non-Anglophone groups. This book explores how early modern English people understood bodily difference, showing that individuals' distinctive features were considered innate while discrete populations shared common characteristics. It challenges the idea that the humoral theory of bodily composition was incompatible with visceral inequality or racism and demonstrates how bodily prejudices influenced social stratification, domestic politics, sectarian division, and international relations.

Format: Hardback
Length: 280 pages
Publication date: 13 May 2019
Publisher: Manchester University Press

The English of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries were able to discriminate systematically among themselves and against non-Anglophone groups due to bodily contrasts, which ranged from hair color, eye color, and skin tone to facial features and skeletal structure. This book explores how early modern English people understood bodily difference, using a variety of sources to demonstrate that individuals' distinctive features were considered innate, while discrete populations were believed to share common characteristics. It challenges the notion that the humoral theory of bodily composition was incompatible with visceral inequality or racism. While 'race' had not yet assumed its modern valence, and 'racial ideologies' were still to come, such typecasting nonetheless had mundane and lasting consequences. Bodily prejudices influenced social stratification, domestic politics, sectarian division, and international relations, grounded in humoral physiology and Christian universalism, notwithstanding.

Weight: 570g
Dimension: 234 x 162 x 26 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781526134486