Race: The History of an Idea in the West

by Ivan Hannaford

Book Overview

In Race: The History of an Idea in the West Ivan Hannaford guides readers through a dangerous engagement with an idea that so permeates Western thinking that we expect to find it, active or dormant, as an organizing principle in all societies. But, Hannaford shows, race is not a universal idea--not even in the West. It is an idea with a definite pedigree, and Hannaford traces that confused pedigree from Hesiod to the Holocaust and beyond.

Hannaford...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0801852234
• ISBN13: 9780801852237
• Release Date: November 1995
• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Length: 464 Pages
• Weight: 1.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.7" x 9.7"
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

The History of Western Scientific Racism

I highly recommend this book. A well detailed account of the development of scientific racism in the West, showing that it has become a deeply rooted and fundamental aspect of our culture. An another important book on the subject is "The Aryan Myth" by Ivan Polikov, but Hannaford's work concentrates in the evolution of racist thinking in scientific circles, and links much of its influence to pseudo-scientific occult theories, and in particular, the Jewish Kabbalah. According to the Hannaford, racist theories developed from the Kabbalistic interpretation of the curse of Ham, and it was the the Kabbalistic science of physiognomy, the study of facial features with the goal of recognizing the elect, that introduced type-thinking to the West. What makes Hannaford's work stand out from others of its kind, is his establishment of this most important conncection. I only gave the book 4 stars, because, unfortunately, I don't believe he explored the subject sufficiently. ...