“Bindman’s ‘Race Is Everything’ more than fulfills the promise of its title. How we see race is determined by our ideologies of difference, which are often so habituated that we believe we see our world and its inhabitants in an unmitigated manner. By looking at the visual codes in modern Western art representing difference—from the African to the Jew and beyond—Bindman provides us with means of deciphering our visual codes while detailing how such codes evolved and persist. A brilliant (and beautiful) work of cultural criticism.”

"In this wonderful book Bindman brilliantly explores the ways in which visual art has represented the very idea of racial hierarchy. Linking ‘scientific’ ideas with the works and lives of artists in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, this lucid, lavishly illustrated text ranges from high art to popular racist imagery, and highlights resisters such as Frederick Douglass and W. E. B. Du Bois."

“Few scholars have done more than Bindman to untangle the complex, interconnected histories of art and race. Fewer still have attempted to do so across such a dramatic sweep of time and space. Throughout this important study, he deftly shows how the visual culture of the nineteenth century both depended on and promoted racial ideologies, which were so often based in contemporary conceptions of science. Indeed, Bindman writes, ‘the science on which such racial hierarchies were based was essentially visual.’ Without visual representation, racial science would have struggled to survive. But with visual representation, it was, by the end of the century, more prolific and inescapable than ever, being broadcast in advertisements and other images that became a central part of the way people lived and learned. Bindman brilliantly explains the historical antecedents of this process, as well as its disastrous results.”

"In this remarkable book, Bindman shows how concepts of packaged human differences labeled as races have deformed every aspect of the human experience and human society. Can a book about race be a page turner? Yes, absolutely, and this is it!"

"Race has been typically treated as at most a troubling theme, topic, or issue in art’s history, rather than a central, abiding—and toxic—structuring principle of the making, use, and understanding of art. Bindman puts race center stage, proving not only that for the last three centuries of European and American art race was 'everything,' but that such art, through the misuse of its visualizing powers, has been centrally responsible for this disastrous obsession. Eloquent, deeply learned, and fiercely passionate, this book should be required reading for anyone concerned with the history of art."

"'Race is Everything': Art and Human Difference parses the pivotal role of the visual arts in both defining and perpetrating racism in the West, particularly in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Cool, informed, and artful, Bindman traces these prejudices back to the Romans and Greeks, whose take on beauty has remained remarkably resilient. . . . Bindman’s compassion, however, never out- weighs his intellectual agility. 'Race is Everything' is profound and troubling but fundamentally directive, illustrating what needs to be done to rectify our ignorance and the cultural inculcation of hatred."

"I must say, I really enjoyed reading this book. You might think you can anticipate the sort of examples of racialisation to be found in art history. . . .But that is to do the book a disservice. The sheer variety of examples on offer, as well as the clarity and richness Bindman brings to the discussion is worth the price of admission."