Here are 100 books that Facing Eugenics fans have personally recommended if you like
Facing Eugenics.
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I'm a lapsed lawyer who decided as an empty-nest project to take a few history of medicine courses just for fun. One thing led to another and I found myself with a PhD and a book about eugenics and law to my name. I love the history of medicine. It connects us right back to the cavemen who worried about the same things we worry about today – illness, injury, our bodies, reproduction, death, dying. The history of eugenics is really a part of that history and it is filled with laws – coerced reproductive sterilization, marriage restrictions based on so-called “fitness,” etc. So it's a perfect union of my background and my newfound love.
Nellie McClung, one of the “famous five,” is a well-known name in Canadian history for her role in fighting for the vote for women. But it turns out she was also a eugenicist. This book does a great job of knitting those two elements together and explaining not just why so many early feminists also believed in eugenic principles but how those principles were part of the same thinking. One of the challenges in understanding eugenics is answering the question of how it was that ideas, which we find repugnant today, had such power a hundred years ago. Devereux’s Introduction is one of the best things I have read to help grapple with that question.
I'm a lapsed lawyer who decided as an empty-nest project to take a few history of medicine courses just for fun. One thing led to another and I found myself with a PhD and a book about eugenics and law to my name. I love the history of medicine. It connects us right back to the cavemen who worried about the same things we worry about today – illness, injury, our bodies, reproduction, death, dying. The history of eugenics is really a part of that history and it is filled with laws – coerced reproductive sterilization, marriage restrictions based on so-called “fitness,” etc. So it's a perfect union of my background and my newfound love.
It is important when trying to understand eugenics in Canada to compare how it played out in this country to its trajectory elsewhere. This helps us understand what the commonalities were in the ideas and also to see how and where specific environments resulted in local incarnations of these ideas. Dowbiggin does this for us with great insight by writing comparatively about psychiatry and eugenics in Canada and the U.S. I knew that psychiatrists had enthusiastically taken up the eugenic cause but this book explains really well how and why this happened on both sides of the border, showing us that the profession’s general support for eugenics was not necessarily (or only) because of the ideas themselves, but for professional and status-building reasons.
What would bring a physician to conclude that sterilization is appropriate treatment for the mentally ill and mentally handicapped? Using archival sources, Ian Robert Dowbiggin documents the involvement of both American and Canadian psychiatrists in the eugenics movement of the early twentieth century. He explains why professional men and women committed to helping those less fortunate than themselves arrived at such morally and intellectually dubious conclusions.
Psychiatrists at the end of the nineteenth century felt professionally vulnerable, Dowbiggin explains, because they were under intense pressure from state and provincial governments and from other physicians to reform their specialty. Eugenic ideas,…
I'm a lapsed lawyer who decided as an empty-nest project to take a few history of medicine courses just for fun. One thing led to another and I found myself with a PhD and a book about eugenics and law to my name. I love the history of medicine. It connects us right back to the cavemen who worried about the same things we worry about today – illness, injury, our bodies, reproduction, death, dying. The history of eugenics is really a part of that history and it is filled with laws – coerced reproductive sterilization, marriage restrictions based on so-called “fitness,” etc. So it's a perfect union of my background and my newfound love.
This is a book about how eugenic ideas were popularized in early movies. It focuses on one particular movie called The Black Stork which tells the true – and shocking – story of Harry Haiselden, a Chicago physician who was accused of allowing the deaths of so-called “defective” babies in the late 1910s. The book also includes fascinating background about the movie industry at the time, as well as about Pernick’s hunt for a copy of this old film. While it is not about Canada, it nevertheless really helps us understand the way eugenic ideas came before the public and their important relationship to pop culture. It is also a very engaging read which introduced me to the fun of learning about old movies.
In the late 1910s Dr. Harry J. Haiselden, a prominent Chicago surgeon, electrified the nation by allowing the deaths of at least six infants he diagnosed as "defectives". Seeking to publicize his efforts to eliminate the "unfit", he displayed the dying infants to journalists, wrote about them for the Hearst newspapers, and starred in a feature film about his crusade. Prominent Americans from Clarence Darrow to Helen Keller rallied to his support. The Black Stork tells this startling story, based on newly-rediscovered sources and long-lost motion pictures, in order to illuminate many broader controversies. The books shows how efforts to…
I'm a lapsed lawyer who decided as an empty-nest project to take a few history of medicine courses just for fun. One thing led to another and I found myself with a PhD and a book about eugenics and law to my name. I love the history of medicine. It connects us right back to the cavemen who worried about the same things we worry about today – illness, injury, our bodies, reproduction, death, dying. The history of eugenics is really a part of that history and it is filled with laws – coerced reproductive sterilization, marriage restrictions based on so-called “fitness,” etc. So it's a perfect union of my background and my newfound love.
This book should be made into a movie! Yes, it is written by two legal historians and yes, it is about a court case, but it reads like a thriller. Great characters, twists and turns in the plot, prime ministers, feisty ladies, the whole nine yards. It is the story of how a British court decided that women were “persons” and thus could be appointed to the Canadian Senate. At the time, only certain “persons” were eligible and only men were considered “persons.” It is not about eugenics, but the events take place around 1929 and the authors do a great job of explaining what Canadian society was like then. This helps us appreciate why the ground was so fertile for eugenic ideas and why women like the “persons” involved in the story were also eugenicists.
On 18 October 1929, John Sankey, England's reform-minded Lord Chancellor, ruled in the Persons case that women were eligible for appointment to Canada's Senate. Initiated by Edmonton judge Emily Murphy and four other activist women, the Persons case challenged the exclusion of women from Canada's upper house and the idea that the meaning of the constitution could not change with time. The Persons Case considers the case in its political and social context and examines the lives of the key players: Emily Murphy, Nellie McClung, and the other members of the "famous five," the politicians who opposed the appointment of…
I’m a fiction writer interested in exploring big historical moments through the lives of ordinary people. The extensive fight for reproductive rights and bodily autonomy for women, specifically black women, has long been a concern, admittedly for selfish reasons. This ever-shifting terrain—from eugenics and sterilization to coerced birth control and the rise in maternal mortality rates—was initially perplexing to me and it took a great deal of reading to make sense of it. Such research not only informed my historical novel, Night Wherever We Go, but much of how I understand the world. I’d argue one can’t fully comprehend the current abortion rights moment without understanding how race and reproduction are so deeply intertwined.
I love books that help us understand our present and Dolen Perkins-Valdez’s latest novel, Take My Hand, helps us do just that.
Civil, the protagonist, is a young nurse who’s just secured her first job at a federally funded reproductive health clinic in her hometown of Montgomery, Alabama. When she’s sent out on a house call to administer birth control shots to the Williams sisters, ages 11 and 13, Civil must grapple with what she’s being asked to do and why.
Loosely based on the Relf sisters, the two young defendants at the heart of the Relf vs. Weinberger case, which exposed the involuntary sterilization of thousands of poor women and women of color across the South, this novel takes on a weighty subject with great finesse and care.
Montgomery, Alabama. 1973. Fresh out of nursing school, Civil Townsend has big plans to make a difference in her community. She wants to help women make their own choices for their lives and bodies.
But when her first week on the job takes her down a dusty country road to a tumbledown cabin and into the heart of the Williams family, Civil learns there is more to her new role than she bargained for. Neither of the two young sisters has even kissed a boy, but they are poor and Black, and for…
I’m drawn to stories of women whose journeys shed light on human nature. These women are often found in cautionary tales within dystopian and historical fiction. Their stories not only remind us of the past but also hint at possibilities—different versions of the future. To capture this truth, I wrote a novel that delicately blends the past with the near future.
Because of its timelessness, The Scarlet Letter will remain one of my favorite novels. When She Woke is a modern retelling, set in a future where criminals have their skin genetically altered to reflect the nature of their crimes.
The story focuses on the journey of a woman who is "chromed" red for having an abortion and the lessons on love and autonomy that follow.
When she woke, she was red. Not flushed, not sunburned, but the solid, declarative red of a stop sign. An enthralling and chilling novel from the author of MUDBOUND, for fans of THE HANDMAID'S TALE and THE SCARLET LETTER. Hannah Payne's life has been devoted to church and family, but after her arrest, she awakens to a nightmare: she is lying on a table in a bare room, covered only by a paper gown, with cameras broadcasting her every move to millions at home, for whom observing new Chromes - criminals whose skin colour has been genetically altered to match…
Studying anthropology and biology in the 1970s, I was in the perfect position to understand why race was not genetic. From that time on, I wanted everyone to know what race was and was not. But here we a half century later and most individuals in the US – and the world – still believe that race is a valid way to divide individuals into biological groups, and worse, that race, rather than racism, explains differences in life circumstances. As a professor and president of the American Anthropological Association I have taught courses and helped with documentaries, museum exhibits, websites, articles, and books to dispel consequential myth about race and genetics.
Superior by science journalist Angela Saini is based on source materials. In addition, it is animated by interviews with key scientists involved in the struggle to end race science. Saini weaves together stories that get at the more intimate details of, on the one hand, the persistence and continual reinvention of race and race science, and on the other, the work of individuals including Jonathan Marks and Jay Kaufman to move us all to better understanding why racism, not biological race, is the cause of inequalities in health and wealth. Superior is the most readable of all the books that focus on race and human variation.
Financial Times Book of the Year
Telegraph Top 50 Books of the Year
Guardian Book of the Year
New Statesman Book of the Year
'Roundly debunks racism's core lie - that inequality is to do with genetics, rather than political power' Reni Eddo-Lodge
Where did the idea of race come from, and what does it mean? In an age of identity politics, DNA ancestry testing and the rise of the far-right, a belief in biological differences between populations is experiencing a resurgence. The truth is: race is a social construct. Our problem is we find this hard to believe.
When at 13, I declared that I’d become an Egyptologist, quite a lot of people thought it would pass. Fast forward 10 years, and I was starting a PhD on Egyptian mummies in museums – it did not pass. I journeyed from the Louvre where I was a gallery attendant trying to uncover the story of bodies buried in their garden, to England where I relocated with little English to pursue an Egyptology degree… and then two more! The ethics of human remains in museums is a complex topic: that’s why I like to make it more approachable to the public, from running my project Mummy Stories, to giving talks in pubs!
This was the first book to introduce me to the relation between race studies, eugenics, and archaeology.
It was quite a revelation: I was volunteering at the Petrie Museum at the time, and the book uncovers the dodgy relationship between Petrie and Francis Galton.
It was pivotal in transforming the ways I looked at familiar places: it reminded me that places I called home, like the Petrie Museum but also the Louvre, have been very exclusionary to many. It taught me to look differently at places I navigate on a regular basis, to look for the otherstory.
You’ll then have to listen to the Bricks + Mortals podcast on the history of UCL buildings, and your wanders in Bloomsbury won’t be the same again.
How much was archaeology founded on prejudice? The Archaeology of Race explores the application of racial theory to interpret the past in Britain during the late Victorian and Edwardian period. It investigates how material culture from ancient Egypt and Greece was used to validate the construction of racial hierarchies. Specifically focusing on Francis Galton's ideas around inheritance and race, it explores how the Egyptologist Flinders Petrie applied these in his work in Egypt and in his political beliefs. It examines the professional networks formed by societies, such as the Anthropological Institute, and their widespread use of eugenic ideas in analysing…
I’ve always been fascinated by the quest to understand how nature works and to find patterns amid complexity. This drew me towards physics, which seemed unparalleled in its ability to uncover general rules. In contrast, biology seemed merely descriptive, and despite a fondness for wildlife, I stayed away from the subject in school. It turns out, however, that physics and biology are perfect companions; a whole field, biophysics, explores how physical principles are central to the workings of living things. I became a biophysicist, researching topics like the organization of gut microbes and teaching and writing about biophysics more broadly, at scales from DNA to ecosystems.
What does DNA have to do with education, social justice, income inequality, and other weighty topics? I’ve never read anything that makes such a compelling case that the modern revolution in genetics should impact how we structure society as much as it impacts how we treat disease. First, Harden presents wonderful, accessible descriptions of the current state of genetics, including how we know what we know. Genes have a huge impact on life outcomes.
Harden firmly believes that it would be a mistake to sweep genetic research under the rug for misguided but well-meaning reasons; this seems obvious, but it is radical in current social science. Harden explains that taking genetics seriously has surprising consequences for what we consider a fair society; we shouldn’t mistake being genetically lucky for being good.
The book is controversial, and I certainly found myself disagreeing with some of Harden’s conclusions while at the same…
A provocative and timely case for how the science of genetics can help create a more just and equal society
In recent years, scientists like Kathryn Paige Harden have shown that DNA makes us different, in our personalities and in our health-and in ways that matter for educational and economic success in our current society.
In The Genetic Lottery, Harden introduces readers to the latest genetic science, dismantling dangerous ideas about racial superiority and challenging us to grapple with what equality really means in a world where people are born different. Weaving together personal stories with scientific evidence, Harden shows…
I was born in 1957, the year the Space Race started when the USSR launched its first satellite and grew up with astronauts and cosmonauts on the TV. Yuri Gagarin and Gordon Cooper were familiar names to me as a child but I only really started to take notice as the Apollo programme ramped up. Science fiction influenced me at an very early age with books like Kemlo and Tom Swift and, having pestered my English teacher with my embryonic works decided at seventeen to write my own novel. Some years later and just short of sixty I finally wrote Sirkkusaga and now have seven published works out there - as well as two anthologies.
I read these as a young teenager and loved them, they’re star-spanning, rip-roaring tales of civilisations pitted against each other across the universe. Triplanetary is the first book of the Lensman series but we have to wait until book two; First Lensman, for the arrival of the titular characters.
The good guys (Hooray! Including Earth, of course) have an advantage in that certain of them have been selected by the Arisians to wear a device called the Lens - which allows them to harness their mental powers against the Boskonians (the bad guys - boo!), who are assisted by the evil Eddorians.
It’s all good fun, and I admit to the stories having influenced me slightly.
Triplanetary is a space opera by E. E. Smith. This is the original version first serialized in Amazing Stories magazine in 1934. Smith later reworked the story into the first of two Lensman prequels which was then published in 1948. Triplanetary covers an eons-long eugenics project of the super-intelligences of the Arisians an alien race breeding two genetic lines to become the ultimate weapon in their cosmic war with the Eddore.
