Book Talk with Kenan Malik | Not So Black and White: A History of Race from White Supremacy to Identity Politics

Kenan Malik’s Not So Black and White explains the origins of the idea of ‘race’ in Enlightenment thought and politics, and he traces the modern West’s long, failed struggle to escape ideas of race, leaving us with a world riven by identity politics. In doing so, Malik upends many assumptions underpinning today’s heated debates around race, culture, whiteness and privilege.

“Combining valuable historical observations with acute political commentary, Malik unsettles the absurdities, pieties and default settings of contemporary race-talk.” Paul Gilroy, author of The Black Atlantic.

Kenan Malik is a writer, lecturer, BBC commentator, broadcaster and Observer columnist. His previous books include The Quest for a Moral Compass, and From Fatwa to Jihad, which was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize.