This book discusses British thought on race and racial differences in the latter phases of empire from the 1890s to the early 1960s. It focuses on the role of racial ideas in British society and politics and looks at the decline in Victorian ideas of white Anglo-Saxon racial solidarity. The impact of anthropology is shown to have had a major role in shifting the focus on race in British ruling class circles from a classical and humanistic imperialism towards a more objective study of ethnic and cultural groups by the 1930s and 1940s. As the empire turned into a commonwealth, liberal ideas on race relations helped shape the post-war rise of 'race relations' sociology. Drawing on extensive government documents, private papers, newspapers, magazines and interviews this book breaks new ground in the analysis of racial discourse in twentieth-century British politics and the changing conception of race amongst anthropologists, sociologists and the professional intelligentsia.

This work covers the issues of race and politics in contemporary British society, providing an analysis of the historical background to race and politics, a profile of Britain's ethnic minorities, coverage of the problems of a multi-racial society, an examination of race and party politics and urban political change, and a treatment of minority politics and race and policy-making.

A critical study of the issues which are fundamental to the understanding of race and racism in modern Britain, this book examines the history of recent issues, the development of central and local government policies, the role of racist organizations, urban unrest and social change.

Taking as a case study the racial politics of the British state under New Labour, this book advances an idea of multiculturalism as the only conceptual framework that is capable of making sense of the contradictions of contemporary race practice, where racism is simultaneously rejected and reproduced.

Britain and France have developed substantially different policies to manage racial tensions since the 1960s, in spite of having similar numbers of post-war ethnic minority immigrants. This book provides the first detailed historical exploration of race policy development in these two countries. In this path-breaking work, Bleich argues against common wisdom that attributes policy outcomes to the role of powerful interest groups or to the constraints of existing institutions, instead emphasizing the importance of frames as widely-held ideas that propelled policymaking in different directions. British policymakers' framing of race and racism principally in North American terms of color discrimination encouraged them to import many policies from across the Atlantic. For decades after WWII, by contrast, French policy leaders framed racism in terms influenced largely by their Vichy past, which encouraged policies designed primarily to counter hate speech while avoiding the recognition of race found across the English Channel.

This book examines immigration and settlement patterns in Britain and at the civic position of ethnic minorities by outlining the development of race relations in the political context. It analyses the numbers, turnout patterns, voting behaviour and attitudes of the ethnic minorities to the political process and of the political parties to these minorities. In conclusion the author argues that the positive involvement of ethnic minorities in the political process, and in all aspects of British public life, is the genuine, long-term solution both to racial disadvantage and discrimination at every level.

The migration to Britain of people from the New Commonwealth and Pakistan has been an important social and political development. This work describes the major developments in race relations since 1945, from the origins of these migrations in World War II to today's multi-racial society