Oakland, Calif.—Since the publication of Race & Liberty: The Essential Reader in 2009, America has ridden a racial rollercoaster. Voters had elected the first African American president, who preached unity. But from 2014 onward, police killings of black Americans sparked a period of outrage across the country that supercharged the Black Lives Matter movement.

The new, updated version of Race & Liberty includes fresh insights from the perspective of the classical liberal tradition that have been missing from public debate over these issues—and that neither the Right nor the Left currently provide. Contributors Thomas Sowell, Coleman Hughes, Wilfred Reilly, and others, explore the classical liberal values of colorblindness, individual freedom, and constitutional equal protection for individuals, regardless of race.

Rooted in the Judeo-Christian natural-law tradition, classical liberals have advocated freedom from governmental interference, abolition of prejudicial law, equality under a uniform rule of law guaranteed by the Constitution, and market-based entrepreneurial opportunity.

The book tackles questions such as: Why is the government in the race business at all? And why do we take for granted the rapid spread of government racial classification—in college admissions, employment practices, government contracting, and more.

“There are many problems with group-based diversity policies. By privileging the group, we diminish the individual,” Bean says.

Author Biography: Jonathan Bean is a research fellow at Independent Institute and a professor of history at Southern Illinois University. He received his Ph.D.in history from the Ohio State University. He was a member of the Illinois State Advisory Panel for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (2011–2023) and is a member of the Academic Hall of Fame at St. Michael’s College.

For more information, contact Robert Ade, [email protected], or (510) 635-3690.

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