Notice bibliographique
- Notice
Type(s) de contenu et mode(s) de consultation : Texte noté. Image fixe : sans médiation
Auteur(s) : Sussman, Robert W.
Titre(s) : The myth of race [Texte imprimé] : the troubling persistence of an unscientific idea / Robert Wald Sussman
Publication : Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard university press, 2014
Description matérielle : ix, 374 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm
Comprend : Early racism in western Europe ; The birth of eugenics ; The merging of polygenics
and eugenics ; Eugenics and the Nazis ; The antidote : Boas and the anthropological
concept of culture ; Physical anthropology in the early twentieth century ; The
downfall of eugenics ; The beginnings of modern scientific racism ; The Pioneer
Fund, 1970s-1990s ; The Pioneer Fund in the twenty-first century ; Modern racism
and anti-immigration policies ; Conclusion ; Appendix A : The eugenics movement,
1890s-1940s ; Appendix B : The Pioneer Fund
Note(s) : Includes bibliographical references and index
Biological races do not exist -- and never have. This view is shared by all scientists
who study variation in human populations. Yet racial prejudice and intolerance based
on the myth of race remain deeply ingrained in Western society. In his powerful examination
of a persistent, false, and poisonous idea, Robert Sussman explores how race emerged
as a social construct from early biblical justifications to the pseudoscientific studies
of today. The Myth of Race traces the origins of modern racist ideology to the Spanish
Inquisition, revealing how sixteenth-century theories of racial degeneration became
a crucial justification for Western imperialism and slavery. In the nineteenth century,
these theories fused with Darwinism to produce the highly influential and pernicious
eugenics movement. Believing that traits from cranial shape to raw intelligence were
immutable, eugenicists developed hierarchies that classified certain races, especially
fair-skinned "Aryans," as superior to others. These ideologues proposed programs of
intelligence testing, selective breeding, and human sterilization -- policies that
fed straight into Nazi genocide. Sussman examines how opponents of eugenics, guided
by the German-American anthropologist Franz Boas's new, scientifically supported concept
of culture, exposed fallacies in racist thinking. Although eugenics is now widely
discredited, some groups and individuals today claim a new scientific basis for old
racist assumptions. Pondering the continuing influence of racist research and thought,
despite all evidence to the contrary, Sussman explains why -- when it comes to race
-- too many people still mistake bigotry for science
Sujet(s) : Race
Racisme -- Histoire
Identifiants, prix et caractéristiques : ISBN 9780674417311 (hardcover) (alk. paper). - ISBN 0674417313 (hardcover) (alk. paper)
Identifiant de la notice : ark:/12148/cb439068870
Notice n° :
FRBNF43906887
(notice reprise d'un réservoir extérieur)
