Scan barcode
Reviews
War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race by Edwin Black
ojaypm's review
challenging
dark
informative
sad
medium-paced
4.0
I think this is a very important book. It is comprehensive, exhaustive, and illuminating.
It is very hard to read due to the nature of the subject and the awful content chronicled by the author.
I also found it slightly repetitive, and the volume of names, dates and topics can be a bit disorienting.
For those able to cope with the content (and it won’t be everyone) I strongly recommend this book. It details explicitly and in abundance the awful things people can do when they ‚other’ and ‚subhuman’ other people, in places where we were supposedly enlightened and progressive.
It is very hard to read due to the nature of the subject and the awful content chronicled by the author.
I also found it slightly repetitive, and the volume of names, dates and topics can be a bit disorienting.
For those able to cope with the content (and it won’t be everyone) I strongly recommend this book. It details explicitly and in abundance the awful things people can do when they ‚other’ and ‚subhuman’ other people, in places where we were supposedly enlightened and progressive.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Medical trauma, Racial slurs, Ableism, Child abuse, Child death, Kidnapping, Physical abuse, Racism, Antisemitism, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Hate crime, Forced institutionalization, Genocide, Gore, Medical content, Murder, Torture, Violence, and War
mattmclean's review
challenging
dark
informative
slow-paced
4.0
Tons of great information. I feel like the writer kinda got lost in the sauce in regards to listing out eugenic publications and writers. But it was very interesting to see how some of these turned into "reformed" genetic publications.
Overall, very dark (I read a lot of dark shit, and I would have to put this down constantly because it was so upsetting/frustrating) and informative. The only thing I was unsure of is if the extreme medical tests the author says Mengele ran is true (like sewing two twins together). According to Behind the Bastards podcast episode on the Mengele episodes, we have not confirmed if this is true or false. Obviously, the dude was a monster and should burn forever, but I'm not 100% that claim in the book is true. I'll have to read more on it
Overall, very dark (I read a lot of dark shit, and I would have to put this down constantly because it was so upsetting/frustrating) and informative. The only thing I was unsure of is if the extreme medical tests the author says Mengele ran is true (like sewing two twins together). According to Behind the Bastards podcast episode on the Mengele episodes, we have not confirmed if this is true or false. Obviously, the dude was a monster and should burn forever, but I'm not 100% that claim in the book is true. I'll have to read more on it
ngilbert's review
dark
informative
sad
medium-paced
4.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Genocide, Racism, and Medical trauma
shouperman's review
4.0
Chilling. American history is full of terrible things, but this history is one people don't often think about and it is as disgusting a campaign against racial, ethnic, and religious people as anything else Americans have done.
librarianonparade's review
4.0
So much attention has been paid to the means and methods of the Nazi's appalling atrocities during World War II, to the institutional, bureaucratic and legislative infrastructure created to support those actions and the race hatred that impelled them - but little attention has been paid up to the supposed scientific foundations that underlay all of the Nazis' beliefs and justifications. Everyone knows of the Nazis' belief in racial superiority, in the desire for a 'master race', an Aryan race of Nordic supermen - but those beliefs were founded on a pseudo-science called eugenics.
Surprisingly that pseudo-science found its greatest 'success', at least until the advent of Hitler and the totalitarian state of Nazi Germany, in America. Indeed, in this book Black convincingly argues that the 'science' of eugenics was founded in America and later transplanted to Germany. Whilst the term and the concept largely originated in England, there it was never more than theory, whereas it took root and actual expression in many states in America. Through organisations and experimental laboratories founded in large part by notable philanthropic bodies such as the Carnegie Institute and Rockefeller Foundation, American eugenicists, including Margaret Sanger of Planned Parenthood, lobbied Congress, state governments, public health bodies, institutions and care homes, to institute a national program aimed, effectively, weeding out the 'inferior stock' and increasing the ranks of the superior, namely the Anglo-Saxon and Nordic 'races'.
Whilst America never went as far as involuntary euthanasia, many states (over half) did implement laws legislating for involuntary sterilization, marriage restrictions, segregation, immigration restrictions - all designed to prevent those deemed inferior - whether because of intelligence levels, race, religion, hereditary illness or even alcoholism - from breeding and therefore perpetuating and spreading their 'defects' through the body public. California in particular led the way in this movement, with over one third of all compulsory sterilizations in the United States taking place in that state, some 20,000.
One of the truly horrifying revelations in this book was the extent of the legislation and how long the influence of eugenics lingered, and continues to do so. Even though the concept of 'eugenics' fell from favour after World War II and the revelations of the Holocaust, many advocates simply slipped quite effortlessly into the new field of 'genetics', a field Black argues is simply eugenics under another name and shorn of its social and racial elements. Many states took decades after WW2 to repeal their eugenics and miscegenation legislation, and some states continued to perform compulsory sterilization. Indeed, there is evidence that compulsory sterilization is still taking place within California's penal system.
This wasn't an easy read, both in style and in content. The author notes in his preface that each chapter could have been a book on its own, and I can see why. Many chapters feel like stand-alone papers, and Black does occasionally repeat himself or go over the same ground from a slightly different angle. By the time I'd read certain quotes three or four times in different contexts I was getting a little tired. But it is an immensely important book, shedding real light on a topic that has shamefully managed to evade the glaring light of public and academic scrutiny for too long and serving as a real warning to scientists who focus so minutely on aspects of human biology that they become lost in the biology and forget the humanity.
Surprisingly that pseudo-science found its greatest 'success', at least until the advent of Hitler and the totalitarian state of Nazi Germany, in America. Indeed, in this book Black convincingly argues that the 'science' of eugenics was founded in America and later transplanted to Germany. Whilst the term and the concept largely originated in England, there it was never more than theory, whereas it took root and actual expression in many states in America. Through organisations and experimental laboratories founded in large part by notable philanthropic bodies such as the Carnegie Institute and Rockefeller Foundation, American eugenicists, including Margaret Sanger of Planned Parenthood, lobbied Congress, state governments, public health bodies, institutions and care homes, to institute a national program aimed, effectively, weeding out the 'inferior stock' and increasing the ranks of the superior, namely the Anglo-Saxon and Nordic 'races'.
Whilst America never went as far as involuntary euthanasia, many states (over half) did implement laws legislating for involuntary sterilization, marriage restrictions, segregation, immigration restrictions - all designed to prevent those deemed inferior - whether because of intelligence levels, race, religion, hereditary illness or even alcoholism - from breeding and therefore perpetuating and spreading their 'defects' through the body public. California in particular led the way in this movement, with over one third of all compulsory sterilizations in the United States taking place in that state, some 20,000.
One of the truly horrifying revelations in this book was the extent of the legislation and how long the influence of eugenics lingered, and continues to do so. Even though the concept of 'eugenics' fell from favour after World War II and the revelations of the Holocaust, many advocates simply slipped quite effortlessly into the new field of 'genetics', a field Black argues is simply eugenics under another name and shorn of its social and racial elements. Many states took decades after WW2 to repeal their eugenics and miscegenation legislation, and some states continued to perform compulsory sterilization. Indeed, there is evidence that compulsory sterilization is still taking place within California's penal system.
This wasn't an easy read, both in style and in content. The author notes in his preface that each chapter could have been a book on its own, and I can see why. Many chapters feel like stand-alone papers, and Black does occasionally repeat himself or go over the same ground from a slightly different angle. By the time I'd read certain quotes three or four times in different contexts I was getting a little tired. But it is an immensely important book, shedding real light on a topic that has shamefully managed to evade the glaring light of public and academic scrutiny for too long and serving as a real warning to scientists who focus so minutely on aspects of human biology that they become lost in the biology and forget the humanity.
More...