search for books and compare prices
cover image
White Lies: Race and the Myths of Whiteness
Price
Store
Arrives
Preparing
Shipping

Jump quickly to results on these stores:

The price is the lowest for any condition, which may be new or used; other conditions may also be available.
Jump down to see edition details for: Hardcover | Paperback
Bibliographic Detail
Publisher Farrar Straus & Giroux
Publication date January 1, 1999
Pages 221
Binding Hardcover
Book category Adult Non-Fiction
ISBN-13 9780374289492
ISBN-10 0374289492
Dimensions 1 by 6.50 by 9.25 in.
Weight 1 lbs.
Availability§ Out of Print
Original list price $23.00
§As reported by publisher
Summaries and Reviews
Summary
Drawing on his own background growing up Jewish in a largely black housing project in New York City, the author analyzes the racial experiences of his boyhood while investigating the treatment of blacks in society and the media.
Amazon.com description: Product Description: An incisive debunking of our myths and false assumptions about race.

Maurice Berger grew up hypersensitized to race in the charged environment of New York in the sixties. His father was a prototypical Jewish liberal, his mother a dark-skinned Sephardic Jew who hated black people. Berger himself was one of the few white kids in his Lower East Side housing project.

Berger's unusual experience--and his determination to search the subject of race for all its meanings--makes White Lies a fresh and often startling book. In it, Berger juxtaposes a series of brilliant short takes about race with a memoir about his boyhood. He recalls his teenage "cultural" crushes on Aretha Franklin and Angela Davis. He listens to blacks telling of awkward racial incidents--being tailed by security guards in department stores, for instance. He acerbically reviews a Polo ad campaign that makes a black model seem to be, literally, a clotheshorse. He revealingly pairs comments on race from the works of Roland Barthes and Toni Morrison, Studs Terkel and James Baldwin. To all of this Berger responds with his own wry, energetic, penetrating sensibility.

White Lies is a powerful and deeply affecting look at race in America today--free of cant, surprisingly entertaining, unsettled and unsettling.

Editions
Hardcover
Book cover for 9780374289492
 
The price comparison is for this edition
from Farrar Straus & Giroux (January 1, 1999)
9780374289492 | details & prices | 221 pages | 6.50 × 9.25 × 1.00 in. | 1.00 lbs | List price $23.00
About: The author analyzes the racial experiences of his boyhood while investigating the treatment of blacks in society and the media
Paperback
Book cover for 9780374527150
 
from Farrar Straus & Giroux (April 1, 2000)
9780374527150 | details & prices | 5.75 × 8.25 × 0.75 in. | 0.50 lbs | List price $17.00

Pricing is shown for items sent to or within the U.S., excluding shipping and tax. Please consult the store to determine exact fees. No warranties are made express or implied about the accuracy, timeliness, merit, or value of the information provided. Information subject to change without notice. isbn.nu is not a bookseller, just an information source.