The unfit : a history of a bad idea

Front Cover\r......Page 1
Title Page\r......Page 4
Copyright\r......Page 6
Dedication\r......Page 7
Contents......Page 8
Preface......Page 10
Chronology of the Biological Concept of Unfit People......Page 12
Introduction......Page 17
Part I: Before Darwin......Page 24
CHAPTER 1 Who Are the Unfit?......Page 25
CHAPTER 2 The Unfit in Biblical Times......Page 33
CHAPTER 3 Self-Pollution and Declining Health......Page 39
CHAPTER 4 Degeneracy Theory: Identifying the Innately Depraved and the Victims of Vicious Upbringing......Page 55
CHAPTER 5 Dangerous Classes and Social Degeneracy......Page 73
CHAPTER 6 Poor Laws and the Descent to Degeneracy......Page 89
CHAPTER 7 The Perfectibility of Man Confronts Vice and Misery......Page 111
CHAPTER 8 Evolutionary Ethics before Darwin......Page 125
CHAPTER 9 Hereditary Units and the Pessimism of the Germ Plasm......Page 145
Part II: Eugenics Takes the Spotlight......Page 175
CHAPTER 10 The Jukes and the Tribe of Ishmael......Page 177
CHAPTER 11 A Minor Prophet of Democracy......Page 199
CHAPTER 12 Isolating the Unfit through Compulsory Sterilization......Page 215
CHAPTER 13 The Emergence of Two Wings of the Eugenics Movement......Page 247
CHAPTER 14 Europe’s Undesirables Replace the Domestic Unfit......Page 263
CHAPTER 15 Eugenics Becomes an International Movement......Page 281
Part III: Racism, the Holocaust, and Beyond......Page 295
CHAPTER 16 Racism and Human Inequality......Page 297
CHAPTER 17 Jews as People, Race, Culture, Religion, and Victims......Page 313
CHAPTER 18 The Smoke of Auschwitz......Page 331
CHAPTER 19 The Abandonment of Eugenics by Genetics......Page 353
CHAPTER 20 The Future of Eugenics......Page 377
CHAPTER 21 Dealing with Life’s Imperfections......Page 399
Appendices......Page 412
APPENDIX 1 Flow Diagrams and the History of Ideas......Page 413
APPENDIX 2 Useful Books on the History of Eugenics......Page 421
APPENDIX 3 Bibliography......Page 425
Index......Page 443
Back Cover\r......Page 468