The volume is organized into six sections revealing how Europeans developed racist attitudes toward various groups: Jews, Muslims, Black Africans, Asians, the Romani, and global Indigenous Peoples. Sources demonstrate how racism intersects with gender roles, sexual identities, economic status, religious affiliation, national origin, and military alliances, and include examples of historical anti-racist resistance.

There is a general volume introduction and six section introductions, and 42 illustrations; brief headnotes accompany each document; and marginal glossing throughout helps students with unfamiliar references and terminology. An alternative table of contents presents documents chronologically.