Includes bibliographical references (pages 181-194) and index.
1. Introduction -- 2. The Theoretical Status of the Concept of Race -- 3. Where Culture Meets Structure: Race in the 1990s -- 4. Dictatorship, Democracy, and Difference: The Historical Construction of Racial Identity -- 5. Contesting the Meaning of Race in the Post-Civil Rights Period -- 6. The Los Angeles "Race Riot" and Contemporary U.S. Politics -- 7. Hard Lessons: Recent Writing on Racial Politics -- 8. Racial Formation and Hegemony: Global and Local Developments -- 9. Rethinking Race in Brazil -- 10. "The Fact of Blackness" in Brazil -- 11. Democracy Reenvisioned, Difference Transformed: Comparing Contemporary Racial Politics in the United States and Brazil