Book review: Racisms: from the crusades to the twentieth century by Francisco Bethencourt

"Racisms: From the Crusades to the Twentieth Century." Francisco Bethencourt. Princeton University Press. January 2013. --- Racisms is an interdisciplinary work that aims to provide a comprehensive history of racism from the Crusades to the twentieth century, and analyse how practices of discrimination and segregation were defended. Francisco Bethencourt sets out to demonstrate that there is not one continuous tradition of racism in the West, and shows that racism preceded any theories of race and must be viewed within the prism and context of social hierarchies and local conditions. Mahon Murphy finds this an admirable book that traces and explains the development of social practices that exclude targeted groups and the accompanying racial theories.