ABSTRACT

Over the last decade, historians of the United States such as David Roediger (1991, 1994, 2002), Noel Ignatiev (1995), Matthew Jacobson (1998), and many others have played a crucial role in the growth and popularity of whiteness studies-and with numerous positive results. If much of whiteness studies, as Margaret Andersen convincingly demonstrates in Chapter 2 in this volume, has shifted the focus away from people of color and from issues of power and privilege, whiteness historiography may be an exception. Indeed, scholars such as Roedigerhave stressed the centrality of people of color in histories and theories of whiteness; and he along with numerous other historians has focused squarely on issues of power and resources, inequality and racism.