The Racial Contract puts classic Western social contract theory deadpan to extraordinary
radical use. With a sweeping look at the European expansionism and racism of the last five
hundred years Charles W. Mills demonstrates how this peculiar and unacknowledged contract has
shaped a system of global European domination: how it brings into existence whites and
non-whites full persons and sub-persons how it influences white moral theory and moral
psychology and how this system is imposed on non-whites through ideological conditioning and
violence. The Racial Contract argues that the society we live in is a continuing white
supremacist state. As this 25th anniversary edition?featuring a foreword by Tommy Shelbie and a
new preface by the author?makes clear the still-urgent The Racial Contract continues to
inspire provoke and influence thinking about the intersection of the racist underpinnings of
political philosophy.
