The Great White Hoax

Two Centuries of Selling Racism in America

A provocative new history of the forgeries, bogus science, rigged data, and fake news that keep American racism alive

“Anyone interested in the intersection of race, politics, and public lies in America will want to read this book.” —David S. Reynolds, Bancroft Prize–winning cultural historian and author of John Brown, Abolitionist and Walt Whitman’s America

Fake news, outright political lies, a shamelessly partisan press, and the collapse of truth, civility, and shared facts, Philip Kadish argues, are nothing new. The Great White Hoax, a masterpiece of historical and literary sleuthing, reveals that the era of Fox News and Donald Trump is simply a return to form. We have been here before.

In a book that brilliantly puts our current era into historical context, The Great White Hoax uncovers a centuries-long tradition of white supremacist hoaxes, perpetrated on the American public by a succession of political hucksters and opportunists, all of them willfully using racial frauds as tools for political and social advantage. In the antebellum era, slavery’s defenders used bogus science to “prove” the inferiority of African American people; during the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln’s enemies circulated a sham pamphlet accusing him of promoting a dilution of the white race through “miscegenation” (a racist term invented by the pamphlet’s authors).

From these murky beginnings, author Philip Kadish draws a direct thread to D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation, Henry Ford’s adaptation of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Madison Grant’s embrace of eugenics (which directly influenced Adolf Hitler), Alabama Governor George Wallace’s race-baiting, and Roger Ailes’s creation of Fox News.

The Great White Hoax reveals white supremacy as today’s real “fake news”—and exposes the cast of villains, past and present, who have kept American racism alive.

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Praise

“The Great White Hoax brilliantly illustrates how the myth of so-called white supremacy is a fraud which has been perpetuated by journalists, authors, and politicians.”
—Steven W. Thrasher, author of The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide
“Philip Kadish reveals that our time of fake news and alternative facts is not much different from Abraham Lincoln’s era of humbug—the period of P.T. Barnum’s crowd-thrilling frauds and Melville’s shape-shifting confidence man. Anyone interested in the intersection of race, politics, and public lies in America will want to read this book.”
—David S. Reynolds, Bancroft Prize–winning cultural historian and author of John Brown, Abolitionist and Walt Whitman’s America
“Kadish’s beautifully written, endlessly fascinating, and stunningly insightful book brilliantly reveals that for most of American history hucksters have used scientific fraud to justify white supremacy, subjugate the ‘other,’ gain political power, and augment their bank accounts. The Great White Hoax masterfully demonstrates that the recent bout of racism catalyzed by Donald Trump is not an aberration in American history, but rather a depressing return to form.”
—Jonathan Peter Spiro, author of Defending the Master Race
“Philip Kadish shines a provocative light on an important moment in America’s racial history . . . a timely and illuminating exploration.”
—Michael Eric Dyson, New York Times bestselling author of Tears We Cannot Stop

Goodreads Reviews