I just finished this book…all 444 pages of it. While the story was fascinating, I must say that I found the book rather boring. It was written in the form of a scholarly text book. I guess at this point of my life when I read a book I don’t expect it to be like something I was forced to read in college. I read now for pleasure and for self fulfillment.
This is the story of Eugenics and especially how it developed and prospered during the early part of the last century. It’s tragic that some of the insane laws that were written back then based on this junk science are still on the books today. I actually have a vague memory of a discussion I had with my mom in what was probably the early 70’s. I was just a kid but I remember having this conversation for some reason about blood tests and when people got married. She said something to the effect that if it wasn’t a good match then you could be prevented from getting married. There is no doubt in my mind that this was something that my mother had heard when she was a little girl growing up in the 30’s and 40’s. It is made even more troubling by the fact that there was at least one great uncle of mine who was an epileptic. This was not something that you wanted to broadcast to the world that you had in your family.
My father has an old photography book. It’s from the 70’s I think. I was glancing through it a few weeks back when I was struck by a photograph of a woman from the period right before the First World War. It was black and white obviously and her look was rather grim. But what really jumped off the page was the sign that hung around her neck. It said “blind.” This book on Eugenics goes into great detail of some of the horrifying things that happened to epileptics, the blind and the deaf during this first part of the century.
What is amazing is some of the striking similarities between the Progressives of Woodrow Wilson’s time, the Progressives of an Ayn Rand novel, the Progressives of the 1930’s and 1940’s both in America and Europe and the modern Progressive movement.
I wouldn’t necessarily suggest this book as it was most certainly a chore to finish. It is meticulously documented with over a 100 pages of notes, footnotes, source and index material. But if you really want the full back-story of this rather dark chapter of our history then this book delivers.