This purpose has been accomplished thoroughly, and one of the most far-reaching effects of the doctrines enunciated in this volume and in the discussions that followed its publication was the decision of the Congress of the United States to adopt discriminatory and restrictive measures against the immigration of undesirable races and peoples. The first half is Grant describing categories based on physical traits, with Nordic and Teutonic races superior, followed by Alpine and Mediterranean, then Baltic and Slav, and negroes the lowest. The population of the so-called Baltic provinces of Russia is everywhere Nordic and their affinities are with Scandinavia and Germany rather than with Slavic Moscovy. A disturbing book to read when considering that Madison Grant was a strong influencer of the early eugenicists in the USA (Davenport most specifically) and that his unscientific musings on the use of skulls shape and language as evidence of racial superiority and weakness. Boas and his students were strongly opposed to racialist notions, holding that any perceived racial inequality was from social rather than biological factors. Unless such an instinct develops their race will perish, as do all organisms which disregard this primary law of nature. The passing of the great race or, The racial basis of European history. more details. This importation of slaves and the ultimate extension of the Roman citizenship to their manumitted descendants and to inferior races throughout the growing Empire and the losses in internal and foreign wars, ruined the state. "The idea is if we don't look out the white race will be will be utterly submerged. Historically, topically, and geographically, Grant's magnum opus covers a vast amount of ground, broadly tracing the racial history of Europeans from prehistoric times to the present, with an emphasis on the need to preserve the northern European type and generally improve the racefor Grant was, logically, a proponent of eugenics. His fantastical theories espouse the idea that the "Nordic race" is inherently superior to other human beings. We are now engaged in destroying the privilege of wealth; that is, the reward of successful intelligence and industry and in some quarters there is developing a tendency to attack the privilege of intellect and to deprive a man of the advantage gained from an early and thorough classical education. He bade fare well to Christian and democratic values. 4 payments of AU $20.14 with Afterpay. Both of these races are, therefore, western extensions of Asiatic subspecies and neither of them can be considered as exclusively European. In the Europe of to-day the amount of Nordic blood in each nation is a very fair measure of its strength in war and standing in civilization. The world has seen many such mixtures and the character of a mongrel race is only just beginning to be understood at its true value. Even after the statute was passed, Grant continued to be irked that even a smattering of non-Nordics were allowed to immigrate to the country each year. In 1916, eugenicist Madison Grant published the book The Passing of the Great Race; or The Racial Basis of European History, hereafter The Passing of the Great Race, where he claimed that northern Europeans, or Nordics, are biologically and culturally superior to the rest of humanity. With the proportional immigration law of 1924, the descendants of the founding Americans won a victory which would last 40 years, until senator Ted Kennedy after pressure from various special interest groups, especially Jewish groups, put this law out of effect with the new immigration laws of 1965 (see the book The Culture of Critique for a detailed description of this by Dr. Kevin MacDonald), but for a time this book (along with the works of his friend Lothrop Stoddard) helped set the national mood that helped secure the immigration restrictions of 1924. A fantastically "just-so" book: things are ordered exactly as Grant wishes them to be, he just makes up whatever conditions he needs to knit things together. Date 1916 1916) (25 January 2006 (according to Exifdata)) Source The final three chapters consider the relationship between the Nordic race and the Aryan group of languages. This is a practical, merciful, and inevitable solution of the whole problem, and can be applied to an ever widening circle of social discards, beginning always with the criminal, the diseased, and the insane, and extending gradually to types which may be called weaklings rather than defectives, and perhaps ultimately to worthless race types. Kurtagi published his art on many volumes of far-right books. Grant complains that recent immigrants to the US are not the strong Nordics who dominated earlier centuries, but are, as he calls them, social discards and weak refugees fleeing persecution. "The Supreme Court Ruling that led to 70,000 Forced Sterilizations." "The Passing of the Great Race," in its original form, was designed by the author to rouse his fellow Americans to the overwhelming importance of race and to the folly of the "Melting Pot" theory, even at the expense of bitter controversy. One of the curious effects of democracy is the unquestionable fact that there is less freedom of the press than under autocratic forms of government. The native Americans [American Nordics] are splendid raw material, but have as yet only an imperfectly developed national consciousness. The Passing of the Great Race or The Racial Basis of European History is a book written by Madison Grant. Definite traces remain of the blood of the Mongols both in isolated and compact groups in south Russia and also scattered throughout the whole country as far west as the German boundary. ed., with a documentary supplement, with prefaces by Henry Fairfield Osborn. In the US, Grants and other eugenicists vision of negative eugenics was enacted through state laws like the Virginia Sterilization Act of 1924 that allowed state institutions, such as prisons and asylums for people with mental illnesses, to sterilize people without their consent. Search the history of over 797 billion If you enjoy the works of Lothrop Stoddard and/or Hans F. K. Gnther, you will love "The Passing of the Great Race.". Critics warned that Grant used uncritical circular reasoning. The Passing of The Great Race; or, The Racial Basis of European History is a 1916 book by the American lawyer and conservationist Madison Grant. The unfortunate fact that nearly all species of men interbreed freely leaves us no choice in the matter. He then speculates hereditary links between the proposed Nordic people and the Trojans[4]:159 and between the Prussians and the Spartans. ", Aranda, Elizabeth and Elizabeth Vaquera. 4Th rev. To admit the unchangeable differentiation of race in its modern scientific meaning is to admit inevitably the existence of superiority in one race and of inferiority in another. While reading it, you should take into consideration the era of which it was written, for many of his points or examples are now obsolete. Buy It Now. In a letter to Grant, Adolf Hitler wrote, "This book is my Bible," and he used large passages of it in his own "Mein Kampf.". The theory and the book were praised by Adolf Hitler and other Nazis, so much so that the it was the first foreign book published by the Nazis[clarification needed] after they came to power.[3]. It gave us, when mixed and invigorated with Nordic elements, the most splendid of all civilizations, that of ancient Hellas, and the most enduring of political organizations, the Roman State. Simplified spelling is a step in this direction. Grant viewed the immigration into the US of different groups as not beneficial. "Dr. Elizabeth Vaquera." Grant also helped establish numerous conservation organizations and parks, such as the Save-the-Redwoods League and Denali National Park in Alaska. Grant argued that negative eugenics was a more practical course of action to pursue in the US because he believed it would be much easier to identify and eradicate the people with the worst genetics than to select a group of people with the best genetics, and restrict the right to have children only to them. According to Andrew S. Winston, who studies how psychology has historically been used by racist movements, Grant did this to avoid anti-German sentiment of World War I, which was occurring at the time that Grant published The Passing of the Great Race. Be the first to write a review. "The passing of the great race; or, The racial basis of European history" by Madison Grant. Grant asserts that people from Europe, Africa, and Asia represent different species of humans, while different races within Europe constitute subspecies, or populations with distinct characteristics. The work was categorised by the publisher as "science" and so never had a chance at mass popularity. According to reviews of the early editions, the publication of The Passing of the Great Race caused a sensation and instigated debate in the academic and public spheres. Grant argues that the Alpines are best suited as agricultural peasants, whereas Mediterraneans are superior in art and other intellectual pursuits. (Grant wrote the introduction to Stoddard's book The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy.) Throughout history it is only the race of the leaders that has counted and the most vigorous have been in control and will remain in mastery in one form or another until such time as democracy and its illegitimate offspring, socialism, definitely establish cacocracy [rule by the worst] and the rule of the worst and put an end to progress. The Nordic, in his hypothesis, was "Homo europaeus, the white man par excellence. The Passing of the Great Race; or, The Racial Bias of European History Madison Grant Charles Scribner's Sons, 1916. A supposedly scientific look at race by a man who otherwise did some great conversation work, helping to establish national parks, etc. In Hindustan the blond Nordic invaders forced their Aryan language on the aborigines, but their blood was quickly and utterly absorbed in the darker strains of the original owners of the land. Part one, "Race, Language, and Nationality," is composed of seven chapters that detail Grants racial theories and advocate for eugenics programs such as forced sterilization and strict laws against marriage between people of different races. Heinrich Himmler's Lebensborn ("Fount of Life") Society was formed to preserve typical Nordic genes, such as blond hair and blue eyes, by sheltering blonde, blue-eyed women. Acting as an expert on world racial data, Grant also provided statistics for the Immigration Act of 1924 to set the quotas on immigrants from certain European countries. Belonging physically and spiritually to the lower race, but aspiring to recognition as one of the higher race, the unfortunate mongrel, in addition to a disharmonic physique, often inherits from one parent an unstable brain which is stimulated and at times overexcited by flashes of brilliancy from the other. The Nordics inhabit the countries around the North and Baltic Seas and include not only the great Scandinavian and Teutonic groups, but also other early peoples who first appear in southern Europe and in Asia as representatives of Aryan language and culture. The book received positive reviews in the 1920s, but Grant's popularity declined in the 1930s. andrea@archive.org Galton and other proponents of eugenics advocated to restrict reproduction to improve the human species through selective breeding. The tendency in a democracy is toward a standardization of type and a diminution of the influence of genius. "Reviewed Work(s): The Passing of the Great Race: Or the Racial Basis of European History by Madison Grant. "A Review of Reviews: Of Madison Grants Passing of the Great Race. As measured in terms of centuries these characters are fixed and rigid and the only benefit to be derived from a changed environment and better food conditions is the opportunity afforded a race which has lived under adverse conditions to achieve its maximum development but the limits of that development are fixed for it by heredity and not by environment. It really deserves one star for it's completely irrational and misguided claims about racial taxonomies, its pseudo-science and its historical inaccuracies. Additionally, a 1921 article by then Vice President Calvin Coolidge published in Good Housekeeping echoed many of the ideas presented in The Passing of the Great Race, as Coolidge called for immigration restriction and condemned interracial marriages. The second chapter, "Paleolithic Man," draws directly from Henry Fairfield Osborns Men of the Old Stone Age. Furthermore, Grant warns of the dangers of what he calls race suicide, where the superior Nordic race declines in population numbers through low birth rates and frequent wars, while inferior races grow in numbers by having more children and ultimately replace the allegedly superior races. We Americans must realize that the altruistic ideals which have controlled our social development during the past century and the maudlin sentimentalism that has made America "an asylum for the oppressed," are sweeping the nation toward a racial abyss. These inferior races and classes are prompt to recognize in such an admission the very real danger to themselves of being relegated again to their former obscurity and subordinate position in society. The book presents Grant's view on Europeans, argued to consist of three branches, namely the Alpine, Nordic and Mediterranean races. In the crossing of the blond and brunet elements of a population, the more deeply rooted and ancient dark traits are prepotent or dominant. 354-360 The book was translated into several European languages in its day. "[1], "Madison Grant (1865 - 1937) was an American lawyer, historian, physical anthropologist, conservationist, and eugenicist. According to Grants biographer Jonathan Spiro, Grants book synthesized a range of racist and pseudoscientific eugenics claims in prose that was accessible to the public. If Grant's elite had predominated in North America, it is no exaggeration to say that the history of the 20th century would have been altogether different" - Richard Spencer, Alternative Right, National Policy Institute. By allowing only people who they believed to be of good stock to have children, eugenicists claimed that governments could eradicate disease and disability and curb overpopulation. Grant claims that the members of contemporary American Protestant society who could trace their ancestry back to Colonial times were being out-bred by immigrant and "inferior" lower-class White racial stocks. Grant demonstrated his eclecticism by taking the Anglo-Saxon tradition, borrowing a bit of racial philosophy from one writer, a bit from another, and weaving together a comprehensive view of history. [17], expansion of the U.S. Black population into the urban areas of the North, The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy, "Embryo Project Encyclopedia: The Passing of the Great Race; or The Racial Basis of European History (1916), by Madison Grant", "Prophet of American Racism: Madison Grant and the Nordic Myth", "A New Look at Old Data May Discredit a Theory on Race", "Overview of U.S. White Supremacist Groups", "Adam Serwer: White Nationalism's Deep American Roots", "Book Review: Science for Segregation: Race, Law, and the Case Against Brown v. Board of Education", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Passing_of_the_Great_Race&oldid=1142611861. In the French Revolution the majority, calling itself "the people," deliberately endeavored to destroy the higher type and something of the same sort was in a measure done after the American Revolution by the expulsion of the Loyalists and the confiscation of their lands, with a resultant loss to the growing nation of good race strains, which were in the next century replaced by immigrants of far lower type. A huge inspiration to me, although I cannot recommned it to other readers. So long as there is in the world a freely breeding stock or race that has in it an inherent capacity for development and growth, mankind will continue to ascend until, possibly through the selection arid regulation of breeding as intelligently applied as in the case of domestic animals, it will control its own destiny and attain moral heights as yet unimagined. Study with Quizlet and memorize flashcards containing terms like Fear that new immigrants would negatively transform American society, -Catholic, Orthodox, Jewish -won't be fully loyal -threat to jobs -many are communists -blamed for slums + crime, the passing of the great race and more. The American sold his birthright in a continent to solve a labor problem. The ideal in eugenics toward which statesmanship should be directed is, of course, improvement in quality rather than quantity. Get help and learn more about the design. The individual himself can be nourished, educated and protected by the community during his lifetime, but the state through sterilization must see to it that his line stops with him, or else future generations will be cursed with an ever increasing load of misguided sentimentalism. The laws of nature require the obliteration of the unfit and human life is valuable only when it is of use to the community or race. Adolf Hitler referred to The Passing of the Great Race as his Bible, and during the Nuremberg Trials in the 1940s, Nazi leaders who were prosecuted for war crimes committed during World War II presented the book as evidence that eugenics did not solely originate in Germany but rather had deep roots in the United States. The US Supreme Court did not overturn such laws, called anti-miscegenation laws, until the 1967 Loving v. Virginia case. The passage of the Immigration Act of 1924 significantly limited the quota of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe, who Grant claimed were undesirable, and prevented nearly all immigration from east Asia. In turn, this corruption of society would lead to the subjection of the Nordic community to "inferior" races who would in turn long to be dominated and instructed by "superior" ones utilizing authoritarian powers. Hardcover, 150 pages. Among those who embraced the book and its message was Adolf Hitler, who wrote to Grant to personally thank him for writing it, referring to the book as "my Bible."[9]. Equality in their minds meant merely that they were just as good Englishmen as their brothers across the sea. Grant expounds a theory of Nordic superiority, claiming that the "Nordic race" is inherently superior to other human "races". Philanthropy and noble purpose dictated the doctrine expressed in the Declaration of Independence, the document which to-day constitutes the actual basis of American institutions. "Johnson, Albert." According to historian Winston, present-day neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups continue to cite The Passing of the Great Race as foundational to their movement. Tripe. This, however, is at present a counsel of perfection and we must face conditions as they are. The Passing of the Great Race; or, The Racial Basis of European History A. K. History Nature IN this work Mr. Grant takes up a theme which was broached by Dr. Gustav Retzius in his Huxley lecture to the Royal Anthropological Institute in 1909. Denmark, Norway and Sweden are purely Nordic and yearly contribute swarms of a splendid type of immigrants to America and are now, as they have been for thousands of years, the chief nursery and broodland of the master race. For the world's future the destruction of wealth is a small matter compared with the destruction of the best human strains, for wealth can be renewed while these strains of the real human aristocracy once lost are lost forever. He reasons that the Nordic races would become extinct and the United States as it was known would cease to exist, being replaced by a fragmented country, or a corrupted caricature of itself. He can breed from the best or he can eliminate the worst by segregation or sterilization. Ripley examined correlations between geography and measurements of the human body, called anthropometric data. The boast of the modern Indian that he is of the same race as his English ruler is entirely without basis in fact and the little swarthy native lives amid the monuments of a departed grandeur, professing the religion and speaking the tongue of his long forgotten Nordic conquerors, without the slightest claim to blood kinship. These children were often fathered by their white masters, which led to their fair skin and resemblance to other white children. Grant claims that when a person from a supposedly superior race reproduces with a person of a supposedly inferior race, the child is unequivocally a member of the inferior race. The book was a parody of contemporary writers and would thus be referring to them sarcastically as a "great race". Probably the greatest anthropological examination of European racial history. It's all scientific stuff; it's been proved.". Grant, Madison, 1865-1937: The passing of the great race : or, The racial basis of European history / (New York : C. Scribner's sons, 1924), also by Henry Fairchild Osborn (page images at HathiTrust) Grant, Madison, 1865-1937: Report of the Bronx parkway commission, appointed under chapter 669 of the laws of 1906. According to Grant, Nordics were in a dire state in the modern world, where after their abandonment of cultural values rooted in religious or superstitious proto-racialism, they were close to committing "race suicide" by miscegenation and being outbred by inferior stock, which was taking advantage of the transition. "[4] Grant categorized the Alpines as being the lowest of the three European races, with the Nordics as the pinnacle of civilization. The value and efficiency of a population are not numbered by what the newspapers call souls, but by the proportion of men of physical and intellectual vigor. The remainder of the book is divided into two parts. Spiro articulates that Hitlers manifesto Mein Kampf (My Struggle) contains passages that seem directly inspired by The Passing of the Great Race. The Passing of the Great Race is one of the most prominent racially oriented books of all times, written by the most influential American conservationist that ever lived. According to the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, as of 2021, anthropologists know that no combination of physical traits can be used to reliably classify humans into racial groups because race represents social, not biological, categories. In America, also, strange temples, which would have been abhorrent to our Colonial ancestors, are multiplying and our streets and parks are turned over to monuments to foreign "patriots," designed not to please the artistic sense of the passer-by but to gratify the national preference of some alien element in the electorate. True aristocracy or a true republic is government by the wisest and best, always a small minority in any population. Winston, Andrew S. "The Passing of the Great Race" in, Woods, Frederick Adams. An individual of inferior type or race may profit greatly by good environment. [12] Versions of their debates on the relative influence of biological and social factors persist in contemporary anthropology. Deep seated Castilian traditions associate aristocracy with blondness and the sangre azul, or blue blood of Spain, probably refers to the blue eye of the Goth, whose traditional claim to lordship is also shown in the Spanish name for gentleman, "hidalgo," said to mean "the son of the Goth." Democratic theories of government in their modern form are based on dogmas of equality formulated some hundred and fifty years ago and rest upon the assumption that environment and not heredity is the controlling factor in human development. The small Colonial population of America was, on an average and man for man, far superior to the present inhabitants, although the latter are twenty-five times more numerous. The Immigration Act of 1924 is often cited as just one step in a long history of racist immigration policy in the US. ed., with a documentary supplement, with prefaces by Henry Fairfield Osborn by Grant, Madison, 1865-1937; Osborn, Henry Fairfield, 1857-1935 Publication date 1922 Topics Ethnology -- Europe Publisher New York Scribner Collection robarts; toronto Digitizing sponsor msn Chivalry and knighthood, and their still surviving but greatly impaired counterparts, are peculiarly Nordic traits, and feudalism, class distinctions, and race pride among Europeans are traceable for the most part to the north. ", Woods, Frederick Adams. Grant is confident that the American public would agree to sterilize ten percent of the population, beginning with those he calls defectives, including criminals and people with diseases and mental illnesses. This light colored eye has appeared nowhere else on earth, is a specialization of this subspecies of man only and consequently is of extreme value in the classification of European races. The passing of the great race; or, The racial basis of European history. I was interested to note the first publish date was 1917 and the book I was reading was reprinted in 1970. He specifically promotes the idea of the Nordic race as a key social group responsible for human development; thus the subtitle of the book is The Racial Basis of European History. Each race differs in the relative proportion of what we may term good and bad strains, just as nations do, or, for that matter, sections and classes of the same nation. Eye color is of very great importance in race determination because all blue, gray or green eyes in the world to-day came originally from the same source, namely, the Nordic race of northern Europe. In fact, it is said that practically every one of the Forty-Niners [people in search of gold] in California was of Nordic type. "The Passing of the Great Race is one of the most prominent racially oriented books of all times, written by the most influencial American conservationist that ever lived. The Passing of the Great Racehas had many uses over the years. Other articles where Madison Grant is discussed: eugenics: Eugenics organizations and legislation: group, the New York lawyer Madison Grant, aroused considerable pro-eugenic interest through his best-selling book The Passing of the Great Race (1916). The male in his individual development indicates the direction in which the race is tending under the influence of variation and selection. 2016 marks a century since the publication of The Passing of the Great Race, a book described by the late paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould as "the most influential tract of American scientific racism."Its author, Madison Grant, a genteel dabbler with impeccable establishment ties, was a pure and unabashed bigot, a patrician who defended social inequality as the outcome of biological fact.
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