Race: The History of an Idea in the West

Rating:
Summary: The History of Western Scientific Racism
Review: 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. ...

Rating:
Summary: The History of Western Scientific Racism
Review: 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. ...

Rating:
Summary: Good on Modern Racism
Review: This book contains a lot of good information, but its basic thesis is flawed. There is nothing new about the idea of race, i.e. a group of people emerging from a common origin and thus sharing a common character. Hannaford does not understand that the original meaning of the Latin derived "nation" meant not a country but a race. Thus, whenever people in the past discussed "nations and peoples" they meant races. In fact, the Bible provides a genealogy of race in Genesis Chapter 10 where it explains the origin of all races from Noah's three sons, Shem, Japheth, and Ham. Shem's descendants populated Asia, Japheth's descendants populated Europe, and Ham's descendants populated Africa. Thus, each race had a forefather and through him shared a common blood. This Noachian genealogy as it was called formed the basis for all modern ideas of race. Linnaeus division into mongoloid, caucasian, and negroid corresponded to the three sons. Unfortunately, Hannaford's desire to ignore biblical ideas of race misses the fact that Christians already were racist and explains why less-educated but highly-religious people remained the most racist. Thus, he can not explain the interesting story of how science altered and questioned old assumptions about race. While early philologists such as Frederick Schlegel and William Grimm assumed that race corresponded to language and one could trace blood connections through studying language, anthropologists such as Rudolf Virchow showed that the groups considered to be nations based on shared language and culture were not pure races. While there is a lot of good research about race in this book, it needs to be supplemented by Leon Poliakov's The Aryan Myth that provides a much more accurate understanding of pre-Enlightenment racial conceptions.

Rating:
Summary: Good on Modern Racism
Review: This book contains a lot of good information, but its basic thesis is flawed. There is nothing new about the idea of race, i.e. a group of people emerging from a common origin and thus sharing a common character. Hannaford does not understand that the original meaning of the Latin derived "nation" meant not a country but a race. Thus, whenever people in the past discussed "nations and peoples" they meant races. In fact, the Bible provides a genealogy of race in Genesis Chapter 10 where it explains the origin of all races from Noah's three sons, Shem, Japheth, and Ham. Shem's descendants populated Asia, Japheth's descendants populated Europe, and Ham's descendants populated Africa. Thus, each race had a forefather and through him shared a common blood. This Noachian genealogy as it was called formed the basis for all modern ideas of race. Linnaeus division into mongoloid, caucasian, and negroid corresponded to the three sons. Unfortunately, Hannaford's desire to ignore biblical ideas of race misses the fact that Christians already were racist and explains why less-educated but highly-religious people remained the most racist. Thus, he can not explain the interesting story of how science altered and questioned old assumptions about race. While early philologists such as Frederick Schlegel and William Grimm assumed that race corresponded to language and one could trace blood connections through studying language, anthropologists such as Rudolf Virchow showed that the groups considered to be nations based on shared language and culture were not pure races. While there is a lot of good research about race in this book, it needs to be supplemented by Leon Poliakov's The Aryan Myth that provides a much more accurate understanding of pre-Enlightenment racial conceptions.