The Rising Tide of Color: Against White World Supremacy

A far-seeing survey of race and history, T. Lothrop Stoddard’s epic 1921 work did not refer to a belief that whites should rule over other races, but merely that, as he put it, a man who in 1914 looked at a world map “got one fundamental impression: the overwhelming preponderance of the white race in the ordering of the world’s affairs.”

It was this dominance, Stoddard said, which was coming to an end because of the massive demographic swings which he foresaw over the coming decades—just one of the many accurate predictions made in this book which have allowed it to stand the test of time.

Starting with an overview of the different races of the world and their traditional homelands, Stoddard pointed out how their technological backwardness allowed what he called the “white flood” to colonize all four corners of the earth.

However, he continued, the transfer of European technology, learning and know-how to the nonwhite races of the earth had now empowered them, and as a result, the era of white domination was surely coming to an end.

The advent of the First World War, he said, had “shattered white solidarity” and inflicted huge damage upon the European people, weakening them in the coming struggle for survival.

He warned that any policy which promoted open borders, and unrestricted immigration, would lead to the final and irreparable destruction of any European nation.

He also foretold that the massive population boom of the Third World would sooner or later come pressing against all white nations’ borders—driven forward by the Third World’s inability to maintain order and progress, and the offer of a better life under white rule which they claimed to dislike so much.

He was also one of the few to recognize the growing threat of militant Islam, and warned in this book that it would become a major world force.

Stoddard argued that the only way to avoid a worldwide racial catastrophe was to educate people on the issue of race and the need for racial improvement through eugenics.

Finally, he concluded that the only way to achieve racial peace was to abandon the concept of white supremacy completely, saying:

“We whites will have to abandon our tacit assumption of permanent domination over Asia, while Asiatics will have to forego their dreams of migration to white lands and penetration of Africa and Latin America. Unless some such understanding is arrived at, the world will drift into a gigantic race-war—and genuine race-war means war to the knife. Such a hideous catastrophe should be abhorrent to both sides.”

Front cover: A reproduction of the original 1921 edition dust jacket cover.