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How did an obscure academic idea pave the way to the Holocaust within just fifty years? Control is a book about eugenics, what geneticist Adam Rutherford calls “a defining idea of the twentieth century.” Inspired by Darwin’s ideas about evolution, eugenics arose in Victorian England as a theory for improving the British population, and quickly spread to America, where it was embraced by presidents, funded by Gilded Age monopolists, and enshrined into racist American laws that became the ideological cornerstone of the Third Reich. Despite this horrific legacy, eugenics looms large today as the advances in genetics in the last thirty years—from the sequencing of the human genome to modern gene editing techniques—have brought the idea of population purification back into the mainstream. Eugenics has “a short history, but a long past,” Rutherford writes. The first half of Control is the history of an idea, from its roots in key philosophical texts of the classical world all the way into their genocidal enactment in the twentieth century. The second part of the book explores how eugenics operates today, as part of our language and culture, as part of current political and racial discussions, and as an eternal temptation to powerful people who wish to improve society through reproductive control. With disarming wit and scientific precision, Rutherford explains why eugenics still figures prominently in the twenty-first century, despite its genocidal past. And he confronts insidious recurring questions—did eugenics work in Nazi Germany? And could it work today?—revealing the intellectual bankruptcy of the idea, and the scientific impossibility of its realization.
This volume assesses the history of eugenics in the United States and its status in the age of the Human Genome Project. The essays explore the early support of compulsory sterilization by doctors and legislators.
Philippa Levine is the Mary Helen Thompson Centennial Professor in the Humanities at the University of Texas at Austin. Her books include Prostitution, Race and Politics: Policing Venereal Disease in the British Empire, and The British Empire, Sunrise to Sunset. --
Considered a classic in the field, Troy Duster's Backdoor to Eugenics was a groundbreaking book that grappled with the social and political implications of the new genetic technologies. Completely updated and revised, this work will be welcomed back into print as we struggle to understand the pros and cons of prenatal detection of birth defects; gene therapies; growth hormones; and substitute genetic answers to problems linked with such groups as Jews, Scandanavians, Native American, Arabs and African Americans. Duster's book has never been more timely.
Traces the history of eugenics ideology in the United States and its ongoing presence in contemporary life. The Nazis may have given eugenics its negative connotations, but the practice--and the "science" that supports it--is still disturbingly alive in America in anti-immigration initiatives, the quest for a "gay gene, " and theories of collective intelligence. Tracing the historical roots and persistence of eugenics in the United States, Nancy Ordover explores the political and cultural climate that has endowed these campaigns with mass appeal and scientific legitimacy. American Eugenics demonstrates how biological theories of race, gender, and sexuality are crucially linked through a concern with regulating the "unfit." These links emerge in Ordover's examination of three separate but ultimately related American eugenics campaigns: early twentieth-century anti-immigration crusades; medical models and interventions imposed on (and sometimes embraced by) lesbians, gays, transgendered people, and bisexuals; and the compulsory sterilization of poor women and women of color. Throughout, her work reveals how constructed notions of race, gender, sexuality, and nation are put to ideological uses and how "faith in science" can undermine progressive social movements, drawing liberals and conservatives alike into eugenics-based discourse and policies.
How did an obscure academic idea pave the way to the Holocaust within just fifty years? Why does eugenics still loom large in the 21st century, despite its genocidal past? Did eugenics work? Could it work? Or was it always a pseudoscientific fantasy? Throughout history, people have sought to reduce suffering, eliminate disease and enhance desirable qualities in their children. In the Victorian era eugenics, a full-blooded attempt to impose control over unruly biology, began to grow among the powerful and quickly spread to dozens of countries around the world. But these ideas are not merely historical: today, with new gene editing techniques, conversations are happening about tinkering with the DNA of our unborn children to make them smarter, fitter, stronger. Deeply steeped in contemporary genetics, CONTROL offers a vital account of one of the defining - and most destructive - ideas of the twentieth century.
"Theory. Traced to its Greek roots, "theory" means to see inwards; to theorize is to use our mind's eye systematically, following articulated principles, to discern meaningful patterns among observations and ideas (Oxford English Dictionary [OED] 2022). The implication is that without theory, observation is blind and explanation is impossible"--
A provocative pop history that explores the witches—and witch hunts—in the untold story of abortion, from the days of Socrates through the Salem Witch Trials and the 1980s Satanic Panic, all the way to our fraught present. “Not only fascinating and engaging but, in our current post-Roe climate, necessary . . . with wit, humor, and verve that make it an unputdownable read for every feminist.” —Jennifer Wright, author of Madame Restell: The Life, Death, and Resurrection of Old New York’s Most Fabulous, Fearless, and Infamous Abortionist For millennia, across cultures and continents, both providers and recipients of reproductive healthcare and abortions have been persecuted as witches (whether they actually practiced the craft or not). In this dauntless reassessment of that history, journalist Sophie Saint Thomas follows the tangled threads of witches and reproductive rights through the ages. Along the way, she maintains an intersectional eye toward the communities most affected by reproductive oppression (including Native Americans, enslaved Black women, and trans people) and offers a scathing look at the hypocrisy of anti-choice crusaders (from eugenicists in the Church of Satan to an astrology-following Republican First Lady). With heart, humor, and deeply researched insights, Reproductive Rites brings new context to the urgency of our ongoing fight.
This book is reflecting upon core theories in evolutionary biology – in a historical as well as contemporary context. It exposes the main areas of interest for discussion, but more importantly draws together hypotheses and future research directions. The Modern Synthesis (MS), sometimes referred to as Standard Evolutionary Theory (SET), in evolutionary biology has been well documented and discussed, but was also critically scrutinized over the last decade. Researchers from diverse disciplinary backgrounds have claimed that there is a need for an extension to that theory, and have called for an Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (EES). The book starts with an introductory chapter that summarizes the main points of the EES claim and indicates where those points receive treatment later in the book. This introduction to the subjects can either serve as an initiation for readers new to the debate, or as a guide for those looking to pursue particular lines of enquiry. The following chapters are organized around historical perspectives, theoretical and philosophical approaches and the use of specific biological models to inspect core ideas. Both empirical and theoretical contributions have been included. The majority of chapters are addressing various aspects of the EES position, and reflecting upon the MS. Some of the chapters take historical perspectives, analyzing various details of the MS and EES claims. Others offer theoretical and philosophical analyses of the debate, or take contemporary findings in biology and discuss those findings and their possible theoretical interpretations. All of the chapters draw upon actual biology to make their points. This book is written by practicing biologists and behavioral biologists, historians and philosophers - many of them working in interdisciplinary fields. It is a valuable resource for historians and philosophers of biology as well as for biologists. Chapters 8, 20, 22 and 33 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.