The Retreat of Scientific Racism
Changing Concepts of Race in Britain and the United States between the World Wars

This fascinating study documents the refutation of scientific foundations for racism in Britain and the United States between the two World Wars.

Elazar Barkan (Author)

9780521458757, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 16 September 1993

396 pages
22.8 x 15.2 x 2.4 cm, 0.642 kg

'Barkan's nuanced treatment of American and British anthropologists and biologists … between the world wars is an authoritative and significant contribution to the history of racial thought of the two major English-speaking countries. His study … is a splendid example of the type of work that should be done in this subfield of intellectual history.' Vernon J. Williams, Jr, The American Historical Review

This fascinating study in the sociology of knowledge documents the refutation of scientific foundations for racism in Britain and the United States between the two World Wars, when racial differences were no longer attributed to cultural factors. Professor Barkan considers the social significance of this transformation, particularly its effect on race relations in the modern world. Discussing the work of the leading biologists and anthropologists who wrote between the wars, he argues that the impetus for the shift in ideologies came from the inclusion of outsiders (women, Jews, and leftists) who infused greater egalitarianism into scientific discourse. But even though the emerging view of race was constrained by a scientific language, he shows that modern theorists were as much influenced by social and political events as were their predecessors.

Part I. Anthropology: 1. Constructing a British identity
2. American diversity
Part II. Biology: 3. In search of a biology of race
4. The limit of traditional reform
5. Mitigating racial differences
Part III. Politics: 6. Confronting racism: scientists as politicians
Epilogue.

Subject Areas: History of ideas [JFCX]