Among the most poisonous legacies of the era of European colonialism and slavery is the idea of race. Silvia Sebastiani and I have explored a little of the history of the idea of race in the era of Enlightenment. As our article is not open access, a short thread... #Race #racism

History is sometimes thought of as a kind of balance sheet of goods and bads. Historians are often attacked for telling a "black armband" view of history (as an Australian PM once described it) that denies its glories, among them Europe's Enlightenment. #History #Histoire #Shame

History is not a balance sheet. Race was as much a part of Europe's Enlightenment as was the idea of a universal humanity. They did not exist in separate columns on a balance sheet. Understanding the connection is what Silvia and I have tried to explain. #racism #History #ideas

We focus on one well known intellectual, Adam Ferguson (1723-1816). Though his publications were very widely read, like a lot of university professors to this day he arguably reached a much wider audience through his teaching. #Scottish #Enlightenment #teaching #lecture

Ferguson's lectures on moral philosophy presented race as part of the scientific study of our universal humanity. We all shared the intellectual means to progress. Yet, he also argued, we were divided into races, some superior to others. #humanity #universal #progress

How did Ferguson square that circle? Well, you'll have to read our article to find out. His ideas are important today because they show that race is inextricable from Enlightenment, and why the roots of racism are bound to Enlightened dreams of progress & universality. #Legacies

Finally, Ferguson matters especially to us in Australia because he came here as we were being colonised by Britain in 1788 and after. I don't mean him exactly, but his ideas and his major book, An Essay on the History of Civil Society. #Australia #colony #colonized #Colonialism

Ferguson's book not only arrived with the First Fleet of British colonists, it also made the first recorded circumnavigation of Australia in 1801-02. We know this because white colonists consulted it to interpret the humanity, and the race, of those already here. #books #readers

That's a history I've explored with @linda_a_burnett here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0952695119836587 (open access). There's more to be said about Ferguson, and much more about the history of race. If you're interested in Silvia and my paper but don't have access, do get in touch. #Thanks #research

I meant to include @JHIdeas in this thread, with my (and Silvia's) thanks for publishing the article.