The Racial Contract puts classic Western social contract theory, deadpan, to extraordinary radical use. With a sweeping look at the European expansionism and racism of the last five hundred years, Charles W. Mills demonstrates how this peculiar and unacknowledged "contract" has shaped a system of global European domination: how it brings into existence "whites" and "non-whites," full persons and sub-persons, how it influences white moral theory and moral psychology; and how this system is imposed on non-whites through ideological conditioning and violence. The Racial Contract argues that the society we live in is a continuing white supremacist state.

As this 25th anniversary edition—featuring a foreword by Tommy Shelbie and a new preface by the author—makes clear, the still-urgent The Racial Contract continues to inspire, provoke, and influence thinking about the intersection of the racist underpinnings of political philosophy.

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Mills radically challenges us to reevaluate how we think about social contract theory, the concept of race, and the structure of our political systems. This is a very important book indeed.

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Mills contends that the ground zero of Western democratic societies is not the mythical social contract that has prevailed among political philosophers but a 'racial contract.'

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This book is a testament to Mills's expertise as a philosopher, a scholar, and a downright intelligent writer.

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An important and timely reminder of the ways in which a philosophy which ignores race is bound up with the privileging of whiteness.