The Shortest History of Eugenics

For the last two centuries, groups of influential men have, in the professed interest of fiscal responsibility, crime reduction, and outright racism, attempted to control who was allowed to bear children. Their efforts, "eugenics," characterize a movement that over the last century swept across the world-from the US to Brazil, Japan, India, Australia, and beyond-in the form of marriage restrictions, asylum detention, and sterilization campaigns affected millions. German physicians and scientists adopted and then heightened these eugenics practices beginning in 1939, starving or executing those they deemed "life unworthy of life."
But well after the liberation of Nazi deathcamps, health care workers and even the US government pursued policies worldwide with the express purpose of limiting the reproduction of poor non-whites. The Shortest History of Eugenics takes us back to the founding principles of the movement, revealing how an idea that began in cattle breeding took such an insidious turn-and how it lingers in rhetoric and policy today.

"Peterson helps us see the motives and ideas behind eugenics as deeply embedded in the history of racism, imperialism, and colonialism. This book could not be more timely." -- James E. Strick, author of Sparks of Life: Darwinism and the Victorian Debates Over Spontaneous Generation
"Indispensable. This formidable history of eugenics helps us understand its continued importance in the modern discussion—from the American roots of Nazi atrocity to the continued use of eugenic practices today. It should be required reading." -- John Slattery, PhD, Executive Director, Carl G. Grefenstette Center for Ethics in Science, Technology, and Law, Duquesne University
"Reckoning with the eugenic past in all its complexity is a task for our times. In The Shortest History of Eugenics, Erik L. Peterson provides a concise survey that nevertheless gives that complexity its due, explaining how scientific ideas, medical techniques, economic incentives, and political ideologies combined to such ruinous effect, with legacies that persist right up to the present." -- Gregory Radick, author of Disputed Inheritance and professor of history and philosophy of science, University of Leeds
"A straight-talking, rollicking, and comprehensive romp through the history of eugenics. If you're new to the subject, this is an excellent place to start." -- Subhadra Das, author of Uncivilised: Ten Lies That Made the West
"Concise and informative, The Shortest History of Eugenics clearly shows that ideas about (white) race betterment both preceded and followed the few decades we often describe as the eugenics era. The belief in the existence of inner essences that makes us who we are and in the societal need to control reproduction is still alive and well, and Peterson’s book is a vivid reminder of how these beliefs have resulted in past horrors that we had better avoid in the future. A tour-de-force." -- Kostas Kampourakis, author of Understanding Evolution

Erik L. Peterson, PhD, is Associate Provost and Associate Professor of the History of Science & Medicine at The University of Alabama. He publishes and teaches about the historical relationship between race and science in the United States and abroad.

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