Modernism and Eugenics

Modernism and Eugenics comprehensively explores modern Europe's fixation with eugenic programmes of racial and national purification. It convincingly demonstrates that between 1870 and 1940 eugenicists were not only preoccupied with rescuing the individual from the anomie of modernity but equally championed a glorious racial destiny for the nation. Is the nation an 'imagined community' centered on culture or rather a biological community determined by heredity? Modernism and Eugenics examines this question from a bifocal perspective. On the one hand, it looks at technologies through which the individual body was re-defined eugenically by a diverse range of European scientists and politicians between 1870 and 1940; on the other, it illuminates how the national community was represented by eugenic discourses that strove to battle a perceived process of cultural decay and biological degeneration. In the wake of a renewed interest in the history of science and fascism, Modernism and Eugenics treats the history of eugenics not as distorted version of crude social Darwinism that found its culmination in the Nazi policies of genocide but as an integral part of European modernity, one in which the state and the individual embarked on an unprecedented quest to renew an idealized national community Is the nation an ìmagined community' centered on culture or rather a biological community determined by heredity? Modernism and Eugenics examines this question from a bifocal perspective. On the one hand, it looks at technologies through which the individual body was redefined eugenically by a diverse range of European scientists and politicians between 1870 and 1940; on the other, it illuminates how the national community was represented by eugenic discourses that strove to battle a perceived process of cultural decay and biological degeneration. In the wake of a renewed interest in the history of science and fascism, Modernism and Eugenics treats the history of eugenics not as a distorted version of crude social Darwinism that found its culmination in the Nazi policies of genocide, but as an integral part of European modernity, one in which the state and the individual embarked on an unprecedented quest to renew an idealized national community --Book Jacket "The most authoritative single-authored work on the transnational eugenics movement yet produced, Turda's book represents the cutting edge of research. Modernism and Eugenics raises compelling and difficult questions about the relationship of eugenics with race, modernity and nationalism that will be debated for a long time to come."--Dan Stone, Professor of Modern History, Royal Holloway, University of London Front Matter....Pages i-xv Introduction: Context and Methodology....Pages 1-12 The Pathos of Science, 1870–1914....Pages 13-39 War: The World’s Only Hygiene, 1914–1918....Pages 40-63 Eugenic Technologies of National Improvement, 1918–1933....Pages 64-91 Eugenics and Biopolitics, 1933–1940....Pages 92-117 Conclusion: Towards an Epistemology of Eugenic Knowledge....Pages 118-126 Back Matter....Pages 127-189