Stamped from the Beginning

A National Book Award winner

The New York Times bestselling history of how racist ideas were created, spread, and deeply rooted in American society.

“An engrossing and relentless intellectual history of prejudice in America.” -Washington Post

Some Americans insist that we’re living in a post-racial society. But racist thought is not just alive and well in America—it is more sophisticated and more insidious than ever. In this deeply researched and fast-moving narrative, Kendi chronicles the entire story of anti-Black racist ideas and their staggering power over the course of American history. As Kendi shows, racist ideas did not arise from ignorance or hatred. They were created to justify and rationalize deeply entrenched racist policies and the nation’s racial inequities.

In shedding light on this history, Stamped from the Beginning offers us the tools we need to expose racist thinking and, in the process, gives us reason to hope.