This text argues that there is nothing obvious or natural about our ideas of sex and race and looks at the evolution of these ideas. The author contends that the slow crystallization of ideas on human races over the last few centuries can be grasped through the study of signs and their systems. However, race and sex are in no way purely abstract or symbolic phenomena. They are the hard facts of society. To be a man or woman, black or white are matters of social reality. To be a member of a particular race or sex does not bring with it the same opportunities, the same rights or the same...

Hugh McLeod approaches the topic of 19th-century urban society, by commissioning articles on representative European cities which discuss the same set of themes, over the same period. Broadly based and comparative, this work looks at three main subjects: responses by the churches to urbanization, the impact of urbanization on religious change, and urban religious cultures.

Deconstructing the Nation examines the connection between racism and the development of the nation-state in modern France. The author raises important questions about the nature of citizenship rights in modern French society and contributes to wider European debates on citizenship. By challenging the myths of the modern French nation Maxim Silverman opens up the debate on questions of immigration, racism, the nation and citizenship in France to non-French speaking readers. Until quite recently these matters have largely been ignored by researchers in Britain and the USA. However, European...

First Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.