By exploring the past and present of patriarchy in the world we have inherited and are building for the future, Imani Perry exposes its mechanisms of domination as a necessary precursor to dismantling it.

Drawing on a rich array of sources - from nineteenth-century slavery court casesand historical vignettes to writings by Toni Morrison and Audre Lorde - Perry shows how the figure of the patriarch emerged as part and parcel of modernity, the nation-state, the Industrial Revolution, and globalization.