The Unseen Truth: When Race Changed Sight in America

The Unseen Truth: When Race Changed Sight in America - Paperback

$26.95
$26.95
Skip to product information
The Unseen Truth: When Race Changed Sight in America
  • The Unseen Truth: When Race Changed Sight in America
The Unseen Truth: When Race Changed Sight in America - Paperback

The Unseen Truth: When Race Changed Sight in America - Paperback

by Sarah Lewis
$26.95
$26.95

Book Overview

by Sarah Lewis (Author)

American Book Award Winner
Anisfield-Wolf Book Award Finalist
Chicago Tribune, 10 Best Books of the Year
A Hyperallergic Best Book of the Year

The award-winning art historian and founder of Vision & Justice uncovers a pivotal era in the story of race in the United States when Americans came to ignore the truth about the false foundations of the nation's racial regime.

In a masterpiece of historical detective work, Sarah Lewis exposes one of the most damaging lies in American history. There was a time when Americans were confronted with the fictions that shored up the nation's racial regime and learned to disregard them.

The surprising catalyst was the Caucasian War--the fight for independence in the Caucasus that coincided with the end of the US Civil War. Images from the Caucasus captivated Americans but also showed that the place from which we derive "Caucasian" for whiteness was not white at all. Cultural and political figures ranging from P. T. Barnum to Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Woodrow Wilson recognized these fictions, exploiting, unmasking, critiquing, or burying them.

To acknowledge the falsehood at the core of racial order proved unthinkable, especially as Jim Crow took hold. Sight became a form of racial sculpture, vision a knife excising whatever did not serve the stability of racial hierarchy. That stability was shaped, crucially, by what Americans were conditioned not to see. Groundbreaking and profoundly resonant, The Unseen Truth shows how visual tactics have long secured our regime of racial hierarchy--and offers a way to begin to dismantle it.
Number of Pages: 400
Dimensions: 1.3 x 8.9 x 5.8 IN
Publication Date: September 15, 2026
ISBN9780674306080
Author Sarah Lewis
PublisherHarvard University Press
GenreHistory, Education, and Arts
FormatPaperback
PublishedSeptember 2026
LanguageENG- English
Pages400
Weight1.0 lb
Target AudienceAdults
Print SizeStandard Print

Related Subjects

Art History Nonfiction Social Science

1% fer Each of the Seven Seas

Every purchase sends 7% of our profits to The Ocean Cleanup. No fine print, no opt-in — just how we sail.

Whoever Ye Be, Welcome Aboard

Queer lit, music, art, philosophy, fiction — stories for every kind of soul. Come as ye are, matey.

More by Sarah Lewis

Race, Love, and Labor: New Work from The Center for Photography at Woodstock's Artist-in-Residency Program

Race, Love, and Labor: New Work from The Center for Photography at Woodstock's Artist-in-Residency Program - Paperback

Race, Love, and Labor: New Work from The Center for Photography at Woodstock's Artist-in-Residency Program - Paperback

By Sarah Lewis

About Sarah Lewis

Sarah Lewis is DuBois Fellow at Harvard University and author of The Rise.

You may also like