Book excerpt: Sociological explanations of racism tend to concentrate on the structures and dynamics of modern life that facilitate discrimination and hierarchies of inequality. In doing so, they often fail to address why racial hatred arises (as opposed to how it arises) as well as to explain why it can be so visceral and explosive in character. Bringing together sociological perspectives with psychoanalytic concepts and tools, this text offers a clear, accessible and thought-provoking synthesis of varieties of theory, with the aim of clarifying the complex character of racism, discrimination and social exclusion in the contemporary world.