This book presents a class-based analysis of poststructuralism and race. The author positions this fundamental question at the heart of his project: why does race still work if it is commonly misunderstood to be a social construct? The answer is that race works because it operates like a commodity, and like any commodity, as long as it generates value (understood in the widest possible sense: economic, political, and cultural-ideological value), it will remain in circulation. This study should contribute to our understanding of race by linking questions of use value to exchange value.

"Young is to be commended and imitated for this rarity among books on theory: one which ably demonstrates its mastery of a broad range of complex theories by thoroughly laying out the fundamental principles of a concept and then cogently describing and analyzing their intersections and the resulting paradoxes and aporia. Equally laudable to my mind is Young's truly rigorous, egalitarian and balanced approach: he does not, like so many other theorists who work on race, simply pay lip service to black feminism and queer theory, but gives them equal weight and consideration rather than directing them to the margins of consideration as nontheoretical interest groups." - African American Review