This trenchant yet subtle book, written by one of the main authorities in the field, discusses the shifting and multiple definitions of the concept of racism. The author challenges a common academic and everyday conception that racism is experienced exclusively by black people. Controversial and compelling it will occupy the centre of contemporary debate in the sociology of racism and ethnic studies.

This book explores the false starts and disturbances of Romantic writing in Britain - 'misfits' and misfittings - as both a constitutive challenge to canonical romanticism and a distinctive literary field worth examining on its own account. Misfits include the Shakespeare forger W.H. Ireland, the novel itself, and the culture of Dissent.