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  • The Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics
  • Yolanda Eraso
Alison Bashford and Philippa Levine, eds. The Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. xx + 586 pp. $150.00 (ISBN-10: 0-19-537314-6, ISBN-13: 978-0-19-537314-1).

The last decade has witnessed a rapidly expanding literature on the history of eugenics observed through its increasing expansion in different latitudes as well as in a reassessment of its legacy in contemporary genetic studies. The Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics reflects the extent to which the historiography of eugenics has matured as a subject to merit the editorial attention of Oxford University Press to commission the first edited volume in comparative eugenics as part of its recently launched “history series.” The invitation has been returned in a substantial and thought-provoking work of thirty-one chapters together with an introduction and epilogue, which will be an invaluable resource for not only students and scholars of eugenics but also for those interested in nationalism, science, and population more broadly.

Among the various possible arrangements within which eugenic topics can be grouped, location stands out in this edition, giving the collection a powerful indication that eugenics, however diverse it has been in its developments, has clearly been ubiquitous across the twentieth century. The volume’s simple division into two sections belies the complexity of the themes that some chapters introduce. Part 1, “Transnational Themes in the History of Eugenics,” comprises ten chapters that, despite the use of the term transnational, do not engage with the transfer or transatlantic exchanges of ideas between countries, but with the salient topics that have prominently featured in most eugenic debates and practices. The section opens with Diane B. Paul and James Moore’s contextual relationships (rather than direct links) between Darwinian evolution by natural selection and Galton’s proposal of artificial selection to improve human populations. It is followed by Philippa Levine’s essay on the milieu where eugenic ideas expanded, colonialism and imperialism, together with the nascent science of anthropology and its [End Page 668] scientific support to notions of racism, thus articulating a discourse of biology and culture. However, as Marius Turda reminds us through his hermeneutical revision of race and eugenics, to equate the latter with racism is hardly instructive, and to restrict both concepts to their association with Nazism can dangerously obscure the many nuances and complex interactions of race and eugenics as well as their enduring political, scientific and social implications. In another chapter, the common association of genetics and eugenics about human inheritance and racial superiority appears as nothing but straightforward and reflects the frequent unease of scientists and social scientists when they had to communicate those concepts in landmark declarations like the ones on race by UNESCO (Roll-Hansen). On the other hand, social and political progressive movements like feminism and social democracy in Western societies have also recognized eugenic advocacy in their pursuit of responsible motherhood and women’s rights to family planning (Susanne Klausen and Bashford) and in the implementation of welfare policies in Scandinavian countries (Véronique Mottier). Two further chapters dwell on the most common subjects of eugenics concerns and practice: the feebleminded and the family. The first one (Mathew Thomson) places segregation of the feebleminded in the asylum as a process preceding eugenic movement, but also one that lingered in controversial practices such as the antenatal screening for Down syndrome. The second one (Alexandra Minna Stern) explores how issues of gender and sexuality have strongly and ambiguously featured in eugenics, by pointing to both women’s agency in supporting an agenda of race betterment and male eugenicists and their pursuit of virile enhancement as a reinforcing movement toward the segregation of those mentally or physically unfit. The section also includes discussion on the inextricable links between eugenics and genocide and with internationalism, respectively. Genocidal practices, as A. Dirk Moses and Dan Stone argue, have extended their initial focus on the Holocaust to other equally eliminationist population policies such as assimilation, absorption, and sterilization. Bashford’s focus on internationalism also contributes an insightful perspective on the broad spread of eugenics by drawing attention...

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