Carole Pateman and Charles Mills's earlier books, The Sexual Contract (1988) and The Racial Contract (1997), offered devastating critiques of gender and racial domination and the contemporary contract tradition's silence on them. Both books have become classics of revisionist radical democratic political theory. Now Pateman and Mills are collaborating for the first time in an interdisciplinary volume, drawing on their insights from political science and philosophy. They are building on but going beyond their earlier work to bring the sexual and racial contracts together.
In Contract and Domination, Pateman and Mills discuss their differences about contract theory and whether it has a useful future, excavate the (white) settler contract that created new civil societies in North America and Australia, argue via a non-ideal contract for reparations to black Americans, confront the evasions of contemporary contract theorists, explore the intersections of gender and race and the global sexual-racial contract, and reply to their critics.
This iconoclastic book throws the gauntlet down to mainstream white male contract theory. It is vital reading for anyone with an interest in political theory and political philosophy, and the systems of male and racial domination.
* Exam copies only available to lecturers for whom the book may be suitable as a course text.
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"Charles Mills and Carole Pateman are two exemplary philosophers of freedom. This book is a grand contribution to our understanding of justice. Don't miss it!"
Cornel West, Princeton University
"A provocative book that hopefully will generate intense debate and discussion."
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society
"Engaging and often thought-provoking ... [Contract and Domination] raises good questions and portends more research into the continued viability of contracts as a basis for thinking about law."
Law and Politics Book Review
"This is the most sustained intersectional analysis of race and gender to date, providing a theoretical account of how these categories connect, overlap, mediate one another, and comparatively structure oppression. It is also a debate in political philosophy over the utility of the contract model for conceptualizing a more just society. The disagreements between the authors will make this book especially fruitful for classroom use."
Lind Martin Alcoff, Syracuse University
Charles W. Mills isJohn Evans Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy at Northwestern University.
