DOCSLIB.ORG

Problems in Eugenics. Papers Communicated to the First

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Problems in Eugenics. Papers Communicated to the First Xr. ^- BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME FROM THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF Henrg M. Sage 1891 iMH5?l aato>± RETURN TO ALBERT R. MANN LIBRARY ITHACA, N. Y. PROBLEMS IN EUGENICS, VOL. II. REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS OF THE First International Eugenics Congress HELD AT THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON, July 24th to 30th, 1912. Together with an Appendix containing those Papers communicated to the Congress not included in Volume I. Published by THE EUGENICS EDUCATION SOCIETY, KINGSWAY HOUSE, KlNGSWAY.j, W.C. 1913. CONTENTS. FAGB. Inaugural Dinner ... ... ... ... ... ... 7 Chairman, Major L. Darwin ... ... ... ... 7 Speakers: Rt. Hon. A. J. Balfour, m.p. ... ... ... 7 M. Paul Doumer ... ... ... ... n Rt. Hon. the Lord Mayor ... ... ... 11 General von Bardeleben ... ... ... 12 Professor B. van Wagenen ... ... ... 12 Major L. Darwin ... ... ... ... 13 Section I., Biology and Eugenics ... ... ... ... 14 Morning Session ... ... ... ... 14— 16 Afternoon Session ... ... ... ... 17— 22 Section II., Practical Eugenics ... ... ... ... 22 r Morning Session ... ... ... ... 22—30 Afternoon Session ... ... ... ... 30—34 Section IIa., Education and Eugenics ... ... ... 35 Morning Session ... ... ... ... 35— 44 Business Meeting ... ... ... ... 44—46 Section III., Sociology and Eugenics ... ... ... ... 47 Morning Session ... ... ... ... 47—55 Afternoon Session ... ... ... ... 56—59 Section IV., Medicine and Eugenics ... ... ... ... 59 Morning Session ... ... ... •• 59—67 Afternoon Session ... ... ... • 67—69 President's Farewell Address ... ... ... ••• 69 Resolutions of thanks to officers, etc., and for hospitality ... ... 71 Documents and Papers presented to the Congress ... ... 72 APPENDIX— The Contributions of Demography to Eugenics, Dr. C. Gini ... 75 Effect of Alcoholism on the Germ-Plasm, Dr. J. A. Mjoen ... ... 172 Neo-Malthusianism and Race Hygiene, Prof. A. Ploetz ... ... 183 Cornell University Library The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924052131137 Preface. Before the meeting of this Congress it was decided that all the papers to be read should, if possible, be printed in time to be placed in the hands of the members during its sessions ; for those not well acquainted with the language in which the paper was read would thus be enabled to follow the proceedings with greater ease. This was in fact in great measure accomplished in the volume entitled " Problems in Eugenics," though not without the most strenuous efforts on the part of all concerned ; and we believe the facilities thus afforded were appreciated. It was, however, impossible for various reasons for some of the authors to send in their papers in time to be included in this publication, and of course the discussions at the Congress, which had not then taken place, could not be printed. The omitted papers and the discussions have, therefore, been included in this supple- mentary volume, so as to complete the records of the Congress. One of the most beneficial results of the Congress was undoubtedly the establishment of the International Eugenics Committee on a permanent basis. The next meeting will be held in Paris, in August, 1913, when various questions connected with the future assembly of Eugenic Congresses will be considered. In " Problems in Eugenics," the warm thanks of the Organizing Committee were expressed to all those who had worked so energetically in making the necessary preparations for the Congress, and these thanks I wish now to repeat in the name of the Eugenics Education Society, more especially to the members of the various Foreign Consultative Com- mittees, on whom the success of the Congress so largely depended. But we were not then able to express our gratitude to those who actually attended. English Eugenists are sincerely grateful to their foreign guests who came to us from afar, and who thus gave to the gathering its truly international character. From our intercourse with them we English acquired much valuable information, for which our hearty thanks are due. We believe, however, that our visitors will recognize that their labours have not been in vain. Eugenics was an unknown word to thousands before the holding of the Congress, who are now beginning to realize its meaning. The Eugenic ideal— the belief that we owe a paramount duty to posterity dependent on the laws of heredity—has been implanted in many minds ; and this seed is, we firmly believe, destined to germinate, and to grow steadily with our increasing scientific knowledge, so that ultimately it will bring forth good fruit. All who attended the Congress did something towards promoting this scientific and ethical movement. LEONARD DARWIN. FIRST INTERNATIONAL EUGENICS CONGRESS. INAUGURAL DINNER, HOTEL CECIL, JULY 24th, 1912. After the dinner the loyal toasts were proposed by the Chairman, Major Leonard Darwin. The Right Hon. A. J. Balfour, M.P., said: Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen, the toast I have to propose is not the least important upon our evening's list. It is that of our Foreign Guests and friends. This is an International Congress; one which deals with the interests not of one civilised nation rather than another, but a Congress which deals with problems which every civilised nation, both in new countries and in old, has got to face, and which in its magnitude naturally and necessarily obliterates all minor differences. In any case, ladies and gentlemen, we are scientific or we are nothing. Science knows no division between nations, and we collected in this room may all feel that, from whatever country we be drawn, to whatever Government we owe allegiance, whatever be our hopes for the future or our traditions from the past, we are all alike interested in a common scientific task, one of the greatest that can be presented, that is being presented, to civilised mankind at the present momient. Now, this International Congress, the first or one of the first which has ever been held upon the subject, has, in my conception of it, two great tasks allotted to it. It has to convince the public, in the first place, that the study of eugenics is one of the greatest and most pressing necessities of our age ; that is its first task. It has to awaken public interest, to make the ordinary man think of the problems which are exercising the scientific mind at the present moment. It has also got to persuade him that the task which science has set itself in dealing with the eugenic problem is one of the most difficult and complex which it has ever undertaken. No man can do really good service in this great cause unless he believes not merely in its transcendent importance, but also in its special and extraordinary difficulty. I am one of those who base their belief in the future progress of mankind in most —; S First International Eugenics Congress. departments upon the application of scientific method to practical life (applause)—and, believe me, we are only at the beginning of that movement. We are only at the beginning of this marriage between science and practice- application Science—even modem science—is old ; relatively old ; but the of science to practice is comparatively new. I hope, and I believe, that among those new applications of science to practice that will be seen in the future, not the least important is that application which it is the business of thi.s International Congress to further. Now, we have to admit that those who have given most thought to the problems which are included under the word eugenics—to the way in which the hereditary qualities of the race are transmitted—are those who at this moment take the darkest view of the general effect of the complex causes which are now in operation. I hope their pessimism is excessive, but it is undoubtedly and unquestionably founded not upon sentiment, but upon the hard consideration of hard facts and those who refuse to listen to their prophecies are bound to answer their reasoning. For that reasoning is not beyond what it is in the power of every man to weigh ; it depends upon facts which it ought not to be difficult to verify. It depends upon premises whose conclusions follow almost inevitably ; and those who roughly and rather contemptuously put aside all these prophecies of ill to the civilisation of the future are bound, in my opinion, to give the closest scrutiny to all these arguments before they reject them, and to show where and how and in what particulars they fail to support the conclusions drawn from them. No doubt the subject, though certain broad conclusions may seem obvious, is itself one of profound difficulty. I wouild go further, and I would venture to say that probably there is more difference of opinion at this moment among scientific men with regard to certain very fundamental principles lying at the root of heredity than there was, for example, in the 70's or 8o's of the last century, after the great Darwin's doctrines were generally accepted— as, indeed, they are, in their main outline, part now of the universal heritage of the race—but before all the more minute scientific investigations had taken place with regard to the actual method by which inherited qualities are handed on from generation to generation. Eugenics has got to deal with the fact of this disagreement, which is of scientific importance. It also suffers from another fact, which is of social and political importance—namely, that every faddist seizes hold of the eugenic problem as a machinery for furthering his own particular method of bringing the millennium upon earth. Further, I not sure am that those who write and talk upon this subject do not occasionally use language which is, I think, incorrect in itself, apt and to produce a certain prejudice in the impartial public.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Race and Membership in American History: the Eugenics Movement
    Race and Membership in American History: The Eugenics Movement Facing History and Ourselves National Foundation, Inc. Brookline, Massachusetts Eugenicstextfinal.qxp 11/6/2006 10:05 AM Page 2 For permission to reproduce the following photographs, posters, and charts in this book, grateful acknowledgement is made to the following: Cover: “Mixed Types of Uncivilized Peoples” from Truman State University. (Image #1028 from Cold Spring Harbor Eugenics Archive, http://www.eugenics archive.org/eugenics/). Fitter Family Contest winners, Kansas State Fair, from American Philosophical Society (image #94 at http://www.amphilsoc.org/ library/guides/eugenics.htm). Ellis Island image from the Library of Congress. Petrus Camper’s illustration of “facial angles” from The Works of the Late Professor Camper by Thomas Cogan, M.D., London: Dilly, 1794. Inside: p. 45: The Works of the Late Professor Camper by Thomas Cogan, M.D., London: Dilly, 1794. 51: “Observations on the Size of the Brain in Various Races and Families of Man” by Samuel Morton. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences, vol. 4, 1849. 74: The American Philosophical Society. 77: Heredity in Relation to Eugenics, Charles Davenport. New York: Henry Holt &Co., 1911. 99: Special Collections and Preservation Division, Chicago Public Library. 116: The Missouri Historical Society. 119: The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit, 1882; John Singer Sargent, American (1856-1925). Oil on canvas; 87 3/8 x 87 5/8 in. (221.9 x 222.6 cm.). Gift of Mary Louisa Boit, Julia Overing Boit, Jane Hubbard Boit, and Florence D. Boit in memory of their father, Edward Darley Boit, 19.124.
    [Show full text]
  • Copyright by Patricia Bujnoch 2018
    Copyright by Patricia Bujnoch 2018 DESTRUCTION OF “UNWORTHY LIVES”: EUGENICS AND MEDICAL DISCOURSE IN WEIMAR AND THIRD REICH CINEMA by Patricia Bujnoch, BA THESIS Presented to the Faculty of The University of Houston-Clear Lake In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements For the Degree MASTER OF ARTS in History THE UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON-CLEAR LAKE MAY, 2018 DESTRUCTION OF “UNWORTHY LIVES”: EUGENICS AND MEDICAL DISCOURSE IN WEIMAR AND THIRD REICH CINEMA by Patricia Bujnoch APPROVED BY __________________________________________ Barbara Hales, Ph.D., Chair __________________________________________ Angela Howard, Degree Ph.D., Committee Member APPROVED/RECEIVED BY THE COLLEGE OF HUMAN SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES Samuel Gladden, Ph.D., Associate Dean __________________________________________ Rick Short, Ph.D., Dean Acknowledgements First, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Dr. Barbara Hales for her support of this thesis, and her patience, motivation, and vast knowledge. Her encouragement throughout my studies at the University of Houston-Clear Lake and especially during the research and writing process was vital to this accomplishment. Additionally, I would also like to acknowledge Dr. Angela Howard as the second reader of this thesis. I am grateful for her valuable advice and willingness to support this work. Finally, I must thank my family, namely my husband and my sons, for demonstrating unlimited patience, understanding, and continuous support throughout my years of studying, researching, and writing this thesis. The support of my family made this reaching this goal a reality. iv ABSTRACT DESTRUCTION OF “UNWORTHY LIVES”: EUGENICS AND MEDICAL DISCOURSE IN WEIMAR AND THIRD REICH CINEMA Patricia Bujnoch University of Houston-Clear Lake, 2018 Thesis Chair: Barbara Hales This project tracks the eugenic discourse of the 1920s through the Nazi era, and analyzes the eugenic links within mainstream Weimar and Nazi films.
    [Show full text]
  • The Rwandan Genocide
    The copyright of this thesis vests in the author. No quotation from it or information derived from it is to be published without full acknowledgement of the source. The thesis is to be used for private study or non- commercial research purposes only. Published by the University of Cape Town (UCT) in terms of the non-exclusive license granted to UCT by the author. University of Cape Town Town Cape of University Mass Murder and Motivation: The Rwandan Genocide ASMUND AAMAAS (amsasmOOl) A dissertation submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the degree of Master of Arts in Jewish Studies Faculty of the Humanities Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies University of Cape Town 2007 Supervisors: Professor Milton Shain and Professor Mohamed Adhikari University of Cape Town Declaration: This work has not been previously submitted in whole, or in part, for the award of any degree. It is my own work. Each significant contribution to, and quotation in, this dissertation from the work, or works, of other people has been attributed, and has been cited and referenced. Acknowledgment The motivation for writing this thesis has its roots in a highly interesting course on Holocaust and mass murder convened and led by Professor Milton Shain at the University of Cape Town in 2003. The seminar was the main reason why I choose to write this thesis. I am truly grateful to my supervisor Professor Shain for letting me do this project and for valuable comments along the process of writing it. Thank you also to my co supervisor Professor Mohamed Adhikari for helpful comments on the thesis.
    [Show full text]
  • Eugenics, Biopolitics, and the Challenge of the Techno-Human Condition
    Nathan VAN CAMP Redesigning Life The emerging development of genetic enhancement technologies has recently become the focus of a public and philosophical debate between proponents and opponents of a liberal eugenics – that is, the use of Eugenics, Biopolitics, and the Challenge these technologies without any overall direction or governmental control. Inspired by Foucault’s, Agamben’s of the Techno-Human Condition and Esposito’s writings about biopower and biopolitics, Life Redesigning the author sees both positions as equally problematic, as both presuppose the existence of a stable, autonomous subject capable of making decisions concerning the future of human nature, while in the age of genetic technology the nature of this subjectivity shall be less an origin than an effect of such decisions. Bringing together a biopolitical critique of the way this controversial issue has been dealt with in liberal moral and political philosophy with a philosophical analysis of the nature of and the relation between life, politics, and technology, the author sets out to outline the contours of a more responsible engagement with genetic technologies based on the idea that technology is an intrinsic condition of humanity. Nathan VAN CAMP Nathan VAN Philosophy Philosophy Nathan Van Camp is postdoctoral researcher at the University of Antwerp, Belgium. He focuses on continental philosophy, political theory, biopolitics, and critical theory. & Politics ISBN 978-2-87574-281-0 Philosophie & Politique 27 www.peterlang.com P.I.E. Peter Lang Nathan VAN CAMP Redesigning Life The emerging development of genetic enhancement technologies has recently become the focus of a public and philosophical debate between proponents and opponents of a liberal eugenics – that is, the use of Eugenics, Biopolitics, and the Challenge these technologies without any overall direction or governmental control.
    [Show full text]
  • Genetics and Politics in the Soviet Union: Trofim Denisovich Lysenko in the 1930S, Forced Collectivization of Farms in the Soviet Union Reduced Harvests
    HGSS: Genetics, Politics, and Society. © 2010, Gregory Carey 1 Genetics, Politics, and Society Eugenics Origins Francis Galton coined the word eugenics in his 1883 book Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development. The term itself derives from the Greek prefix eu (ευ) meaning good or well and the Greek word genos (γενοσ) meaning race, kind or stock. In 1904, Galton gave a presentation to the Sociological Society in London about eugenics. His presentation, along with invited public commentary, appeared in the American Journal of Sociology (Galton, 1904a) with virtually identical versions (sans commentary) appearing in Nature (Galton, 1904b) and, with commentary, in Sociological Papers (Galton, 1905). In these papers, he defined eugenics as “the science which deals with all influences that improve and develop the inborn qualities of a race.” (It is crucial to recognize that the word “race” was used at that time in an eQuivocal fashion. It could denote the term as we use it today, but it could also refer to a human ethnic group or nationality—e.g., the English race—or even a breed of horse or dog. Galton himself meant it in the generic sense of “stock.”) Galton’s view of the future combined fervor with caution: I see no impossibility in eugenics becoming a religious dogma among mankind, but its details must first be worked out sedulously in the study. Overzeal leading to hasty action would do harm, by holding out expectations of a near golden age, which will certainly be falsified and cause the science to be discredited. By “the study” Galton was referring to academic research.
    [Show full text]
  • Conceptualising Eugenics and Racial Hygiene As Public Health Theory And
    Conceptualising Eugenics and Racial Hygiene as Public Health Theory and Practice (from Conceptualising Public Health : Historical and Contemporary Struggles over Key Concepts / edited by Johannes Kananen, Sophy Bergenheim and Merle Wessel (Routledge, 2018)) Paul Weindling Linking race to hygiene Eugenics arose at a crucial historical juncture in terms of demography (with the declining birth rate) and morbidity (with the shift to the greater prevalence of chronic diseases) in the early twentieth century. These epidemiological transitions, in turn, shaped public health measures and associated rationales. This chapter will examine eugenic concepts of population health, and how these entered public health in terms of concepts and practices, especially as deriving from the founders of eugenics – notably Francis Galton in Britain and Wilhelm Schallmayer and Alfred Ploetz in Germany. Their theoretical writings provided fundamental concepts of how population health could be sustained in an emergent welfare state. Eugenic ideas of eradicating physical and mental disabilities, and overall improvement of reproductive and population health, became norms embedded in public health concepts, structures and interventions, persisting until at least a new critical awareness from the mid-1960s which was less directive and more oriented to the person and his or her rights. Historical interest in a critical history of eugenics and the associated ideology of Social Darwinism dates from the mid-1960s’ era of civil rights protests in the USA. A new critical epistemology marked the ending of a positivistic and progressivist approach to the history of eugenics. The view of eugenics as a progressive science was typified by C.P. Blacker, the British eugenicist and psychiatrist.
    [Show full text]
  • “Bothersome Forms, of Course, Were Mechanically Exterminated”
    LETTURE • BORDERS OF THE VISIBLE L. HERRMANN • “Bothersome Forms, of Course, Were Mechanically Exterminated” LEE HERRMANN “BOTHERSOME FORMS, OF COURSE, WERE MECHANICALLY EXTERMINATED” Colonialism, Science, Racial Dysgenia, and Extermination in the Work of H.P. Lovecraft, Intertextually and Beyond ABSTRACT: The science-fiction writer H.P. Lovecraft is famed for his apocalyptic oeuvre. His work is deeply marked by racialist science and colonial history, linking them as structural constants that produce the outbreaks of horror in his stories. The horror is repeatedly represented as a dysgenic devolution with exterminatory implications. Yet similar treatments of racialized fear are commonly expressed in many non-fiction texts and biopolitical agendas, particularly in colonial contexts, and this conjunction also occurs in real events, including the historical apocalypse of the Holocaust. This paper will discuss Lovecraft’s apocalyptic fiction as a structural elaboration of the consequences of colonialism, racism, and scientific rationalism that reveals, despite its fantastic irrationality, a fundamental truth about extermination and modernity. KEYWORDS: Colonialism, Scientific Racism, Extermination, Eugenics, H.P. Lovecraft. INTRODUCTION The reader may be relieved to be informed immediately that the coolly genocidal sentiments quoted in this paper’s title are not the product of a military diary or scientific report from Central Europe, circa 1942, but are taken from an American science-fiction story, published in 1936. The fictitious exterminations so referenced are thus wholly speculative. They were the price of the positive eugenic results achieved by the most advanced civilization ever to exist on Earth, a triumph of scientific rationalism: The alien race of colonizers whose highly- civilized intellectual and aesthetic pursuits required the development of a menial slave-force to free them from work must, perforce, exterminate some bothersome forms on the way, and such work would likely be done best mechanically, that is, scientifically.
    [Show full text]
  • Nature-Nurture, IQ, and Jensenism
    1 NATURE-NURTURE. I.Q., AND JENSENISM: A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE By RICHARD STEPHEN RI CHARDE A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE COUNCIL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 1979 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express appreciation to my committee members, Dr. Robert E. Jester, Dr. Richard J. Anderson, and Dr. Arthur Newman for their support in this project. I would also like to thank Dr. Robert R. Sherman and Dr. William B. Ware for their assistance in my research. Special thanks fo my wife, Lee, for her moral support and typing skills. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ii ABSTRACT iv PROLOGUE 1 I WHY BE CONCERNED? 6 II THE ORIGIN OF THE CONTROVERSY: A HISTORICAL VIEW FROM PHILOSOPHY 12 III NINETEENTH CENTURY BIOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY: THE SCIENCE OF RACISM 34 IV A BRANCHING PATH: GENETICS VS. EUGENICS 58 V A VIEW FROM PSYCHOLOGY: THE MENTAL TESTING MOVEMENT IN AMERICA 82 VI JENSEN AND JENSENISM: ANACHRONISTIC HERESY 148 Jensen's Mentors 156 Level I and Level II Abilities 164 Jensen's Advocates 167 The Range of Opposition 169 Psychology and Education 170 Cultural Anthropology 187 Quantitative Genetics 190 The Contribution ol Jensen 212 VII FROM THE PROMETHEAN LEGACY TO A NEW OPTIMISM APPENDIX LIST OF REFERENCES BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH iii Abstract of Dissertation Presented to the Graduate Council of the University of Florida V in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy NATURE-NURTURE, I.Q., AND JENSENISM- A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE By Richard Stephen Ri Charde December 1979 Chairman: Robert E.
    [Show full text]
  • American Eugenics and the German Sterilization Law of 1933
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by UCL Discovery Egbert Klautke University College London School of Slavonic and East European Studies “The Germans are Beating us at our own Game”: American Eugenics and the German Sterilization Law of 1933 I. In 1934 the superintendent of the Western State Hospital in Richmond, Virginia, Joseph S. DeJarnette, commented with a mixture of admiration and envy on the German sterilization law that had come into effect on 1 January the same year: “The Germans are beating us at our own game.” (DeJarnette 1933, quoted in Kevles 1995: 116; see Black 2003: 279; Spiro 2009: 364; Kühl 1994: 37) DeJarnette was one of the sympathetic American observers of the implementation of a programme of “race hygiene”, or eugenics, in the Third Reich, some of whom even claimed credit for the German “Law on the prevention of hereditarily diseased progeny” (Gesetz zur Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses), which was passed on 14 July 1933 as one of the first measures of the new German government. To these American eugenicists, the German sterilization law could only be implemented so quickly because the Nazis were using American models as a blueprint. While interactions and exchanges between German and American eugenicists in the interwar period were important and significant, however, it is difficult to establish direct American influence on Nazi legislation. German experts of race hygiene who 2 advised the Nazi government in drafting the sterilization law were well-informed about the experiences with similar laws in American states, most importantly in California and Virginia, but there is little evidence to suggest they depended on American knowledge and expertise to draft their own sterilization law.
    [Show full text]
  • Anti-Semitism in Europe Before the Holocaust
    This page intentionally left blank P1: FpQ CY257/Brustein-FM 0 52177308 3 July 1, 2003 5:15 Roots of Hate On the eve of the Holocaust, antipathy toward Europe’s Jews reached epidemic proportions. Jews fleeing Nazi Germany’s increasingly anti- Semitic measures encountered closed doors everywhere they turned. Why had enmity toward European Jewry reached such extreme heights? How did the levels of anti-Semitism in the 1930s compare to those of earlier decades? Did anti-Semitism vary in content and intensity across societies? For example, were Germans more anti-Semitic than their European neighbors, and, if so, why? How does anti-Semitism differ from other forms of religious, racial, and ethnic prejudice? In pursuit of answers to these questions, William I. Brustein offers the first truly systematic comparative and empirical examination of anti-Semitism in Europe before the Holocaust. Brustein proposes that European anti-Semitism flowed from religious, racial, economic, and po- litical roots, which became enflamed by economic distress, rising Jewish immigration, and socialist success. To support his arguments, Brustein draws upon a careful and extensive examination of the annual volumes of the American Jewish Year Book and more than forty years of newspaper reportage from Europe’s major dailies. The findings of this informative book offer a fresh perspective on the roots of society’s longest hatred. William I. Brustein is Professor of Sociology, Political Science, and His- tory and the director of the University Center for International Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. His previous books include The Logic of Evil (1996) and The Social Origins of Political Regionalism (1988).
    [Show full text]
  • Proto-Eugenic Thinking Before Galton
    Proto-Eugenic Thinking Before Galton. Washington: Christoph Irmscher (Indiana University Bloomington) and Maren Lorenz (University of Hamburg/German Historical Institute Washington), 25.09.2008-27.09.2008. Reviewed by Christoph Irmscher Published on H-Soz-u-Kult (December, 2008) In the preface to the revised edition of his his‐ precirculated, and participants were asked to give tory of eugenics, In the Name of Eugenics, Daniel only brief summaries of their main arguments. Kevles suggests that the heyday of eugenics is The frst panel addressed “The Genealogy of over. Where there was eugenics, there is genetics. Eugenic Thought.” SABINE KALFF examined the And there is no chance, he says, that “the revolu‐ proposals for human improvement in two early tion in human molecular genetics will be turned modern Italian utopian texts, Tommaso Cam‐ to eugenic ends.” Kevles’ preface was written in panella’s La Città del Sole (1600-1603) and 1995. Since then, the new challenges posed by pre‐ Francesco Patrizi’s Città Felice (1553). Foucault re‐ natal diagnostics, the human genome project, and peatedly used the metaphor of the shepherd tak‐ cloning have put paid to his prediction. They have ing care of his fock as a paradigm for the ruler’s also changed the parameters of the academic de‐ spiritual hold over the souls of his state, but Kalff bate about eugenics, extending not only its tradi‐ insisted on the literal importance of this popular tional geographical scope but also its convention‐ model for early modern writers. Both Campanella al temporal framework. Pace the common notion and Patrizi relied on the contemporary practices of eugenics as a phenomenon of the late 19th and of animal husbandry to make suggestions for hu‐ early 20th centuries, scholars have now realized man improvement.
    [Show full text]
  • Science for the People Magazine Vol. 14, No. 2
    Vel. 14 No.2 $2... Genetics and Race azi Science !Qstory of B8cism Blacks and PSychia~ ScieDce Education are not white and well-educated; they are predominantly black and uneducated. Since 1972, the unemployment rate for people of color has been twice that of their about this issue white counterparts, which leaves the military as one of their few opportunities for paid work. By bitter irony, Discrimination on the basis of race is an American when the US goes to war, black youths are sent to suffer way of life. Historically, we have witnessed the genocide and die, in defense of a system from which they do not of Native Americans, slavery, segregation, KKK lynch­ benefit. ings, and the routine, day-to-day economic exploitation Second, military expenditure goes mainly (80 per­ and oppression of people of color. Today, this deep­ cent) to pay for conventional forces-the troops, tanks seated racism has found expression in the rise of the and ships ready to intervene throughout the world in the New Right, and the policies of the Reagan administra­ protection of "American interests." These interests are tion. the holdings and potential profits of multinational cor­ Racism is useful to Reagan: racial prejudice can be porations, which are looting the third world of its natu­ used to obscure class allegiance. Divide and conquer is ral resources. They demand that such client states as an age-old ploy and, when times are tough, people of Brazil, Argentina, South Korea, and the Phillipines be color are targeted as scapegoats. The New Right has kept "safe for capitalism": Uncle Sam only worries also attacked feminists, welfare recipients, leftists, about human rights in communist countries.
    [Show full text]