White Freedom: The Racial History of an Idea

In White Freedom Tyler Stovall challenges the traditional view of a paradox between the liberalism of western societies, especially France and America, and their frequent practices of racial discrimination. In contrast, he argues that freedom and race have a close and complex relationship, based on the fact that freedom has often been conceptualized in racial terms. In other words, to be white is to be free, and to be free is to be white.

A French historian by training, Tyler Stovall is a professor of history and Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Fordham University. He was educated at Harvard University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he earned his PhD. Professor Stovall has published numerous articles and more than ten books, including Paris Noir: African Americans in the City of Light (1996), and Transnational France: the Modern History of a Universal Nation (2015).

The Washington History Seminar is co-chaired by Eric Arnesen (George Washington University and the National History Center) and Christian Ostermann (Woodrow Wilson Center) and is organized jointly by the National History Center of the American Historical Association and the Woodrow Wilson Center's History and Public Policy Program. It meets weekly during the academic year. The seminar thanks its anonymous individual donors and institutional partners (the George Washington University History Department and the Lepage Center for History in the Public Interest) for their continued support.