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The Long, Lingering Shadow: Slavery, Race, and Law in the American Hemisphere
Students of American history know of the law’s critical role in systematizing a racial hierarchy in the United States. Showing that this history is best appreciated in a comparative perspective, The Long, Lingering Shadow looks at the parallel legal histories of race relations in the United States, Brazil, and Spanish America. Robert J. Cottrol takes the reader on a journey from the origins of New World slavery in colonial Latin America to current debates and litigation over affirmative action in Brazil and the United States, as well as contemporary struggles against racial discrimination and Afro-Latin invisibility in the Spanish-speaking nations of the hemisphere.
Ranging across such topics as slavery, emancipation, scientific racism, immigration policies, racial classifications, and legal processes, Cottrol unravels a complex odyssey. By the eve of the Civil War, the U.S. slave system was rooted in a legal and cultural foundation of racial exclusion unmatched in the Western Hemisphere. That system’s legacy was later echoed in Jim Crow, the practice of legally mandated segregation. Jim Crow in turn caused leading Latin Americans to regard their nations as models of racial equality because their laws did not mandate racial discrimination― a belief that masked very real patterns of racism throughout the Americas. And yet, Cottrol says, if the United States has had a history of more-rigid racial exclusion, since the Second World War it has also had a more thorough civil rights revolution, with significant legal victories over racial discrimination. Cottrol explores this remarkable transformation and shows how it is now inspiring civil rights activists throughout the Americas.
Ranging across such topics as slavery, emancipation, scientific racism, immigration policies, racial classifications, and legal processes, Cottrol unravels a complex odyssey. By the eve of the Civil War, the U.S. slave system was rooted in a legal and cultural foundation of racial exclusion unmatched in the Western Hemisphere. That system’s legacy was later echoed in Jim Crow, the practice of legally mandated segregation. Jim Crow in turn caused leading Latin Americans to regard their nations as models of racial equality because their laws did not mandate racial discrimination― a belief that masked very real patterns of racism throughout the Americas. And yet, Cottrol says, if the United States has had a history of more-rigid racial exclusion, since the Second World War it has also had a more thorough civil rights revolution, with significant legal victories over racial discrimination. Cottrol explores this remarkable transformation and shows how it is now inspiring civil rights activists throughout the Americas.
360 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 8, 2022
Provides a good overview of the historical interaction between race and law in the U.S., Brazil, and the former Spanish colonies of South America, from colonization through the 20th century. Most of the information about the U.S. will probably be at least broadly familiar to people with a general knowledge of U.S. history but the history of other countries and comparative work in how differing legal system and racial categories influenced eachother provides a lot of good material
October 11, 2013
This was a very accessible and quick read (as far as legal histories go). Cottrol does his best to distill the history of slavery and race laws in the American hemisphere while acknowledging a lack of space to do so fully and a relative blind spot where Spanish Latin America is concerned. Overall, the book is very US-centered, and seems to be, at the last minute, a call to preserve the affirmative action laws that were (and remain) at risk when the book was published.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews