In From Class to Race, Charles Mills maps the theoretical route that brought him to the innovative conceptual framework outlined in his academic bestseller The Racial Contract (1997). Mills argues for a new critical theory that develops the insights of the black radical political tradition. While challenging conventional interpretations of key Marxist concepts and claims, the author contends that Marxism has been "white" insofar as it has failed to recognize the centrality of race and white supremacy to the making of the modern world. By appealing to both mainstream liberal values and the structuralism traditionally associated with the left, Mills asserts that critical race theory can radicalize the mainstream Enlightenment and develop a new kind of contractarianism that deals frontally with race and other forms of social oppression rather than evading them.

By Charles Mills

Part 1 Part One: Marxism in Theory and Practice
Chapter 2 "Ideology" in Marx and Engels Revisited and Revised
Chapter 3 Is It Immaterial that There's a "Material" in "Historical Materialism"?
Chapter 4 Marxism, "Ideology," and Moral Objectivism
Chapter 5 The Moral Epistemology of Stalinism
Part 6 Part Two: Race and Clas
Chapter 7 Under Class Under Standings
Chapter 8 European Specters
Part 9 Part Three: Critical Race Theory
Chapter 10 White Supremacy as Socio-Political System
Chapter 11 White Supremacy and Racial Justice
Chapter 12 The "Racial Contract" as Methodology