The Race Makers: from Louis XIV to Thomas Jefferson

Speaker | Andrew Curran (Wesleyan University)

Research Cycle | Slavery and Serfdom in Europe and the New World: Debates in the Early Modern Period

Director of Studies | Nicholas Cronk (Voltaire Foundation, Oxford)

Within the framework of the fourth cycle of the Turin Humanities Programme, directed by Nicholas Cronk and devoted to “Slavery and Serfdom in Europe and the New World: Debates in the Early Modern Period”,  Andrew Curran—writer and Enlightenment specialist—will be speaking about his new book Biography of a Dangerous Idea: A New History of Race from Louis XIV to Thomas Jefferson (Other Press, 2026), a group biography that chronicles the history of race from Louis XIV to Thomas Jefferson. Rather than treating race as an abstract idea, Curran will explain how race took form through personal choices, ambition, fear, and profit. During the talk, he will also reflect on the craft behind this biographical approach, and how telling large, structural histories through individual lives can help us better understand the past.

The THP Book launch will take place at Fondazione Firpo (Piazza Carlo Alberto, 3 – Torino).