The Rise of the Colored Empires

The Rise of the Colored Empires is a fictional book, attributed to an author named Goddard, that appears in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby as a vehicle for Tom Buchanan's racist and pseudo-scientific worldview. Though never actually quoted or described in detail, the book serves as a crucial piece of Tom's self-presentation: it allows him to claim intellectual authority for his bigotry, and it crystallizes the novel's broader critique of the old-money elite's fear of social and racial change. The book's title alone—with its alarmist vision of non-white peoples rising to power—encapsulates the anxieties that Tom projects onto the world around him, and it stands in sharp contrast to Gatsby's own aspirational self-making, which is driven not by fear of others but by a romantic faith in the future.

Tom Buchanan's Pseudo-Intellectualism

The book first surfaces during the dinner party at the Buchanan mansion in East Egg, when Tom, restless and aggressive, interrupts the conversation to announce that "Civilization's going to pieces." He cites The Rise of the Colored Empires as the source of his pessimism, declaring it "a fine book, and everybody ought to read it." Tom's endorsement is telling: he presents the book as "all scientific stuff; it's been proved," yet his summary of its thesis is a crude racial hierarchy—"if we don't look out the white race will be—will be utterly submerged." The novel's narrator, Nick Carraway, notes that Tom's concentration is "pathetic," as if his complacency, "more acute than of old, was not enough to him any more." The book thus functions as a prop for Tom's need to feel intellectually and morally superior, a need that his wealth and physical power alone cannot satisfy.

The Nordic Supremacy Argument

Tom elaborates the book's supposed argument at the dinner table, insisting that "we're Nordics" and that "we've produced all the things that go to make civilization—oh, science and art, and all that." He includes Daisy, Jordan, and Nick in this category with a slight nod, and Daisy responds with a wink and a whispered mockery—"We've got to beat them down"—that exposes the absurdity of his rhetoric. The scene reveals how the book is used not as a genuine intellectual work but as a social weapon: Tom deploys it to assert dominance over the conversation and to align himself with a racialized vision of civilization. Daisy's ironic interjections, such as asking about "that word" Tom used, undercut his seriousness, but Tom remains oblivious, absorbed in his own performance of profundity.

Contrast with Gatsby's Self-Invention

The Rise of the Colored Empires stands in stark opposition to Gatsby's own origin story. Where Tom relies on a book that preaches racial purity and inherited superiority, Gatsby invents himself from nothing—James Gatz of North Dakota transforms into Jay Gatsby through sheer will and imagination. Gatsby's "Platonic conception of himself" is a form of self-creation that has no place for racial or class hierarchies; he believes in the possibility of reinvention, not in the fixed categories Tom champions. The novel's structure reinforces this contrast: Tom's book is a static, reactionary text that looks backward to preserve a threatened order, while Gatsby's dream looks forward, toward the green light and the "orgastic future." The book thus becomes a symbol of the old world's resistance to change, a resistance that ultimately destroys Gatsby.

The Book as a Marker of Class and Cultural Capital

Tom's citation of The Rise of the Colored Empires also functions as a display of cultural capital in the Bourdieusian sense. By referencing a book he claims is "scientific," Tom attempts to legitimize his economic and social dominance through intellectual authority. Yet the novel exposes the hollowness of this gesture: Tom's reading is shallow, his understanding crude, and his use of the book purely instrumental. The contrast with Gatsby's library—filled with real books that Owl Eyes marvels at, noting "they're absolutely real—have pages and everything"—highlights the difference between genuine culture and its mere performance. Gatsby's books are props for his persona, but they are at least real; Tom's book is a prop for his prejudice, and its content is never examined, only invoked. The novel thus uses the book to critique the way the old elite deploy pseudo-science to justify their privilege, a critique that resonates with the broader themes of class, race, and the American Dream.

The Book's Legacy and the Novel's Critique

The Rise of the Colored Empires never appears again after the dinner scene, but its influence lingers. Tom's racism resurfaces later, when he accuses Gatsby of being a "common swindler" and rails against "intermarriage between black and white" during the confrontation at the Plaza Hotel. The book's ideology—the fear of being "submerged" by other races—underpins Tom's entire worldview, from his contempt for Gatsby's new money to his possessive control over Daisy. In the end, the novel suggests that Tom's reliance on such books is a symptom of a deeper moral failure: he is one of the "careless people" who "smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness." The Rise of the Colored Empires is thus not merely a passing reference but a key to understanding Tom's character and the novel's indictment of the old-money class, whose fear of change and reliance on false authority ultimately lead to tragedy.