"Robert Young has written a compelling and thorough textual history of English ethnicity and its discursive relation to the history of racial theory. Comprehensive, carefully considered, and clearly written, this book sets the standard against which any future study of Englishness will be assessed. The bar has been lifted a couple of notches higher."
David Theo Goldberg, University of California

"What is Englishness?, Robert J. C. Young asks, and in The Idea of English Ethnicityhe offers an impressively well-researched and eminently readable answer."
Werner Sollors, Harvard University

Robert J. C. Young is Julius Silver Professor of English and Comparative Literature at New York University. His previous publications include White Mythologies (1990), Colonial Desire (1995), and Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction (2001).