The Martha Canfield Library in Arlington invites you to our Vermont Reads 2019 kick-off event. Professor William Edelglass will trace the intellectual history of the concept of race in the West, from its prehistory to today at the Library on Sunday, September 22 at 2:00pm.

The first European to divide the peoples of the world into distinct races, in the seventeenth century, claimed that the Sami people of northern Scandinavia were one of four races on earth; Native Americans, Europeans, South Asians, and North Africans together were considered a second race. How did such a bizarre distinction among groups of people develop into one of the most historically significant ideas of the modern world?

Vermont Reads 2019 is a program of the Vermont Humanities Council and this event is free and open to the public. Contact the Library at 802-375-6153 or martha_canfield_lib@hotmail.com for more information.