Drawing the Global Colour Line: White Men's Countries and the International Challenge of Racial Equality

Critical Perspectives on Empire

by Marilyn Lake

In 1900 W. E. B. DuBois prophesied that the colour line would be the key problem of the twentieth-century and he later identified one of its key dynamics: the new religion of whiteness that was sweeping the world. Whereas most historians have confined their studies of race-relations to a national framework, this book, first published in 2008, studies the transnational circulation of people and ideas, racial knowledge and technologies that under-pinned the construction of self-styled white men's countries from South Africa, to North America and Australasia. Marilyn Lake and Henry Reynolds show how in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century these countries worked in solidarity to exclude those they defined as not-white, actions that provoked a long international struggle for racial equality. Their findings make clear the centrality of struggles around mobility and sovereignty to modern formulations of both race and human rights.

Genres: History, Race, Nonfiction, American History, World History, Australia

384 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Marilyn Lake, AO, is Professorial Fellow in History at the University of Melbourne.

Reviews

[Schoon · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for all Canadians.

[Geoffrey Gordon · Rating 5 out of 5]

After the recent mosque massacres in Christchurch, New Zealand, a number of journalists have written about the 'unprecedented' global transmission of white power ideology enabled by new technologies that resulted in the radicalization of the Australian man who carried out those heinous attacks. However, as Marilyn Lake and Henry Reynolds show in Drawing the Global Colour Line, white identity politics throughout the Anglo-American world have been shaped by transnational networks of politicians, activists, and intellectuals for a very long time. The book focuses largely on the Pacific world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when steamships lowered costs of travel and agrarian distress in large parts of Asia led many Indians, Chinese, Filipinos, Japanese, and others to seek work in the white settler societies of the US, ANZAC, and South Africa. It shows how white politicians, intellectuals, and activists learned from each other and encouraged each other to restrict non-white immigration and prevent the integration of so-called 'Asiatics.' The authors suggest that anti-Asian legislation contributed to the rise of Japanese nationalism and hostility towards the US and UK. In light of the connections between far-right activists in the US, Europe, Brazil, and other white settler societies who are collectively promoting Islamophobia, indigenous dispossession, and cultural chauvinism with thinly veiled (or sometimes entirely unveiled) racial undertones, this book feels very timely and relevant, unfortunately.

[Erik Champenois · Rating 4 out of 5]

Helpful overview of late nineteenth century and early twentieth century transnational white supremacy. This was the time in which, according to W.E.B. Du Bois, the world discovered that it was white - and that this whiteness was significant, superior, and signified ownership of the earth. Whereas most histories of racist thought are national in scope, the treatment here is transnational: covering the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. The book focuses particularly on racist immigration policies and the thinking behind them.

A few takeaways:
1. The failures of Reconstruction in the U.S. were used as a negative example by thinkers and politicians elsewhere in the world of how democracy could not succeed in multiracial/multicultural societies, becoming a driver of anti-immigrant policies even outside of the U.S.
2. Anti-Asian immigration legislation significantly impacted international relations vis-à-vis Japan and India. For Japan, anti-immigrant legislation in California (and the rest of the U.S.) led to a significant deterioration in relations with the U.S., paving the way for Pearl Harbor. In India, anti-Indian legislation in British colonies fueled Indian nationalism, particularly through Gandhi's personal experience with anti-Indian racism and legislation in South Africa.
3. This overview history also shows how the kinds of racist thinking that paved the way for Nazi Germany paradoxically became less in vogue right before the rise of Nazi Germany (and were then significantly discredited through Nazi Germany).
4. The book also shows how important whiteness was to Australia's identity - through its "White Australia" policy - from the late nineteenth century to the burial of this policy in 1973. No wonder Australia today remains a deeply racist and anti-immigrant society.
5. This comparative history also shows how Apartheid in South Africa was really just the continuation and crystallization of policies that had been common throughout the white world (and especially in the American South).
6. One of the points of the book is that "whiteness" became a more significant political trend precisely at the moment that colonized people were starting to rise up in greater numbers and reach for self-rule. It's poignant that, with the U.S. on track to becoming a "majority minority" country in the next couple of decades, this is precisely the time in which the U.S. is also seeing a resurgence of white supremacy. Likewise, Europe is becoming more anti-immigrant at the same time its geopolitical power is diminishing.

It's a good intro/overview though I would have loved something more detailed/exhaustive.

[Nick Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it. Lake & Reynolds explore the intricate ideological constructs of the transnational “White Men’s Countries” that we’re touted in the late 19th / early 20th centuries as a response to an intensive period of immigration into these countries and activism from racial minorities within these countries.

They combine biographical, political, and literary history in a seamless and approachable fashion to explain not only how white men’s countries came about, but how “non-white” peoples resisted this ideology.

One criticism for this book is that is is missing a developed gendered analysis - an exploration that these countries are meant for white MEN, and that the response from immigrant / racial minority leaders was led primarily by MEN would be welcome. In many white settler countries, non-white women weren’t even allowed to enter the country up until the late 1910s and 1920s.

[Matthew Rohn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book does a lot of things very well - a careful balance between intellectual and political history of race, contextualizing conflict as existing largely between white settler colonies and nonwhite colonies as the frontiers of interracial contact, useful periodization running from the mid\late 1800s through the end of WWII and the universal declaration of human rights, and the recentering of Western racial thinking away from the Atlantic. Drawing the Global Colour Line isn't perfect but is a very strong work balancing fact and theory and impressive in its scope, especially for its length

[Eric Bottorff · Rating 4 out of 5]

The reason that the movement against racism and white supremacy must be global is because the forces trying to fight for racism and white supremacy are also global. This books brilliantly details a crucial turning point in that history, at which whiteness really solidified itself as a transnational identity category.

[Victor Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent text. One of the best pieces of literature for showing how global white identity was formed and how legal structures of white supremacy were transnational in their development.

[Chloe Z · Rating 4 out of 5]

reading the second time for class, solid book

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another selection for HST 301: Graduate Historiography in Fall 2013. I really liked the effort to integrate US, Australian, and South African (plus a little New Zealand and Canadian) approaches to race-based exclusion. I thought the book was effective in showing the global circulation and reception of texts and intellectuals, activists, and politicians. I wasn't wholly sold on the exhaustiveness of the research, and I didn't see any methodological notes; they do acknowledge that they're doing a bunch of synthesizing, but they don't really go into their method for the primary source research. I also suspect that they had much meatier notes at one point, and then pressure from the publisher for a certain length prompted their removal. The writing style didn't really grab me, either, though I am pondering the effects of joint authorship on that, as well as the fact that I wasn't really learning anything new. I'm interested to see what the students thought of the style.

[Azure · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is well written. However, some of the correlations are stretches and the cherry-picking of data (such as club membership and the leading 'scholarship' information) is a little alarming and misguiding. Regardless, it makes a very good argument for race relations being at the heart of many issues at the beginning of the 20th century. It is a good reminder as to why race relations are tough to broach even today in a world completely submerged in transnational policy. In addition, it gives a good brief recent history of transnational actions and the resulting nation policies and actions.

Definitely a book to read over several weeks and not all at once.

[Madeline Johnston · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had the pleasure of not only studying this book in 2014, but meeting Henry Reynolds as well. This is a wonderful piece of work, as it places Australia and its development into an international context. It teaches readers the impact of both Asia and America on the development of Australia, its society and its constitution; as well as how Australia's status as the social laboratory of the world impacted the development of New Zealand, Canada and the United States of America. Perfect for anyone interested in Australian History!

[Albion]

Bloody excellent. The depth of research is incredible. This book gives one a deep understanding of the moves to define white and 'non' white peoples of the world over the late 19th and early 20th centuries, particularly in regards to so called 'white men's countries' in the British dominions and California. Draws together a lot of history that is well known and places it within a new and dynamically improtant paradigm. Also an easy and engrossing read. An important book.

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

Does show simultaneous development of political/elite thought on Asian immigration in the Anglo-British world, but doesn't define terms, not global, doesn't explore gender/class. Only English-language sources, and only elite Anglo-Saxon idea of Whiteness, which isn't even nuanced by developments in Britain or several other parts of the empire. Easy to read though.