Rate this book. Firstly, it comes with a number of enhancements that will be found in no other edition, including: an introductory essay by Jared Taylor (of American Renaissance), which puts Grant's text into context from our present-day perspective; a full complement of editorial footnotes, which correct and update Grant's original narration; an expanded index; a reformated bibliography, following modern conventions of style and meeting today's more demanding data requirements. According to the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, as of 2021, anthropologists know that no combination of physical traits can be used to reliably classify humans into racial groups because race represents social, not biological, categories. in English - 4th rev. ", Serwer, Adam. The proposed eugenics programs Grant detailed in The Passing of the Great Race also influenced Hitler and the Nazi regime in Germany, who committed genocide in the name of eugenics. The passing of the great race or, The racial basis of European history. "Racist"? In this manner, Grant appeared to be studiously following scientific theory. The passing of the great race: or, The racial basis of European history. Part two of the book, "European Races in History," attempts to demonstrate that history and human progress can be explained entirely in terms of race. Grant feels that certain parts of Europe were underdeveloped and a source of racial stocks unqualified for the Nordic political structure of the U.S. Grant is also interested in the impact of the expansion of the U.S. Black population into the urban areas of the North. View more articles from Geographical Review.View this article on JSTOR.View. In the book, the character Tom Buchanan reads a book called The Rise of the Colored Empires by "this man Goddard", a combination of Grant and his colleague Lothrop Stoddard. To admit the unchangeable differentiation of race in its modern scientific meaning is to admit inevitably the existence of superiority in one race and of inferiority in another. Cisneros Hispanic Leadership Institute. The country villages and the farms are the nurseries of nations, while cities are consumers and seldom producers of men. The continuity of physical traits and the limitation of the effects of environment to the individual only are now so thoroughly recognized by scientists that it is at most a question of time when the social consequences which result from such crossings will be generally understood by the public at large. The preface of the book is written by Jared Taylor, editor of the magazine American Renaissance, among other positions. The book received positive reviews in the 1920s, but Grant's popularity declined in the 1930s. Chamberlains 1899 book Die Grundlagen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts (The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century), written in Germany, built off of Gobineaus arguments to reaffirm that Aryans were superior to all other races and specifically denounce Jewish people as an inferior race. Generally well received at the time in both the popular and scholarly press and going through four editions and multiple reprints, Theodore Roosevelt described The Passing of the Great Race as 'a capital work'. Below is the story of Ellen and William Craft, a married couple who escaped . From barely-used Formula 1 circuits to shuttered . This is a practical, merciful, and inevitable solution of the whole problem, and can be applied to an ever widening circle of social discards, beginning always with the criminal, the diseased, and the insane, and extending gradually to types which may be called weaklings rather than defectives, and perhaps ultimately to worthless race types. The remainder of the book is divided into two parts. The Nordic realm includes nearly all the northern third of France with extensions into the fertile southwest; all the rich lowlands of Flanders; all Holland; the northern half of Germany with extensions up the Rhine and down the Danube; and the north of Poland and of Russia. Some of those Nazi anthropologists, such as Eugen Fischer and Hans F. K. Gnther, were even friends with Grant and stayed in contact with him until his death according to Spiro. with a documentary supplement / with prefaces by Henry Fairfield Osborn. Probably the greatest anthropological examination of European racial history. Eye color is of very great importance in race determination because all blue, gray or green eyes in the world to-day came originally from the same source, namely, the Nordic race of northern Europe. Ripley examined correlations between geography and measurements of the human body, called anthropometric data. When the Nazi regime took control of Germany in 1933, Germany passed the Law for the Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Diseases, which permitted the Nazi Regime to sterilize an estimated 400,000 people against their will according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. "Elizabeth Aranda." "The Biological Racial State: Nazi Racial Hygiene, 19331939." In the US, The Passing of the Great Race was praised by politicians, including former presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Calvin Coolidge, and cited as justification for laws that restricted immigration based on ethnicity and nationality. In the crossing of the blond and brunet elements of a population, the more deeply rooted and ancient dark traits are prepotent or dominant. ", G.H.B. Adolf Hitler referred to The Passing of the Great Race as his Bible, and during the Nuremberg Trials in the 1940s, Nazi leaders who were prosecuted for war crimes committed during World War II presented the book as evidence that eugenics did not solely originate in Germany but rather had deep roots in the United States. A fantastically "just-so" book: things are ordered exactly as Grant wishes them to be, he just makes up whatever conditions he needs to knit things together. In contrast, what Galton called negative eugenics programs attempt to prevent the reproduction of people eugenicists judged to be, to use Grants terms, defective and worthless. Among those who embraced the book and its message was Adolf Hitler, who wrote to Grant to personally thank him for writing it, referring to the book as "my Bible."[9]. It may be latent through several generations of obscurity and then flare up when the opportunity comes. "U.S. Immigration Timeline." "[1], "Madison Grant (1865 - 1937) was an American lawyer, historian, physical anthropologist, conservationist, and eugenicist. In such efforts we encounter social conditions over which we have as yet no control. Philanthropy and noble purpose dictated the doctrine expressed in the Declaration of Independence, the document which to-day constitutes the actual basis of American institutions. They did not take their women with them. Grant, while aware of the "Nordic Migration Theory" into the Mediterranean, appears to reject this theory as an explanation for the high civilization features of the Greco-Roman world. The Passing of the Great Race draws so heavily on Ripleys data that the book is one of only two references explicitly noted by Grant in his introduction to the first edition. The Fhrer himself raved aboutThe Passing, calling it my Bible, and it was entered into evidence at the Nuremberg war crimes trials in defense of Hitlers personal physician to show that specifically American theories of white racial superiority supported the crimes against humanity with which he was chargedforced sterilization, for instance, or unnecessary and experimental surgery performed without anesthesia. Although fundamentally flawed - very refreshing! As a result, Grant believes that democracies that average people run are less efficient than aristocracies ruled by men qualified by noble birth. The first two chapters, "Introduction" and "Race and Democracy," criticize American democracy. May 14, 2019. As the vice president of the Immigration Restriction League, Grant argued that immigration quotas at the time needed to be reduced. In the introduction, Grant expresses that his goal in the book is to explain European history in terms of race, or physical and mental characteristics that he claims are inherited and unchangeable. Grant expounds a theory of Nordic superiority, claiming that the "Nordic race" is inherently superior to other human "races". "Some hundred years after its publication, what strikes me about The Passing of the Great Race is not just its originality - as a racial history, it was the first of its kind - and not just Grant's skill in integrating the most advanced evolutionary science of his day with studies of history and culture. Starting from the now-discredited assumption that Europeans, Africans, and Asians are distinct groups, Grant believed that Europeans, while overall allegedly superior to Africans and Asians, could be further classified into distinct races. Ernest Hemingway might also have alluded to The Passing of the Great Race in the subtitle of his book The Torrents of Spring; A Romantic Novel in Honor of the Passing of a Great Race. If Grant's elite had predominated in North America, it is no exaggeration to say that the history of the 20th century would have been altogether different" - Richard Spencer, Alternative Right, National Policy Institute. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. The Immigration Act of 1924 is often cited as just one step in a long history of racist immigration policy in the US. Grant claimed that the Nordic race was at risk of extinction and advocated for the creation of laws in the US to decrease the population of people he considered inferior. The Census Bureau's projections, released today, estimate that minorities will be the majority by 2042, nearly a decade . Nature cares not for the individual nor how he may be modified by environment. He served as the vice president of the Immigration Restriction League from 1922 to his death in 1937. In The Passing of the Great Race, Grant argues that there are three distinct European races and that the supposedly superior Nordic race is responsible for most notable human achievements and progress. Human society is like a serpent dragging its long body on the ground, but with the head always thrust a little in advance and a little elevated above the earth. Acting as an expert on world racial data, Grant also provided statistics for the Immigration Act of 1924 to set the quotas on immigrants from certain European countries. Women in all human races, as the females among all mammals, tend to exhibit the older, more generalized and primitive traits of the past of the race. "Passing of the Great Race," Madison Grant (1916) 2016 marks a century since the publication of The Passing of the Great Race, a book described by the late paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould as "the most influential tract of American scientific racism." more details. This, however, is at present a counsel of perfection and we must face conditions as they are. The term "Caucasian race" has ceased to have any meaning except where it is used, in the United States, to contrast white populations with Negroes or Indians or in the Old World with Mongols. It sometimes happens that an infiltration of population takes place either in the guise of unwilling slaves or of willing immigrants, who fill up waste places and take to the lowly tasks which the lords of the land despise, thus gradually occupying the country and literally breeding out their masters. A.B.S. In the French Revolution the majority, calling itself "the people," deliberately endeavored to destroy the higher type and something of the same sort was in a measure done after the American Revolution by the expulsion of the Loyalists and the confiscation of their lands, with a resultant loss to the growing nation of good race strains, which were in the next century replaced by immigrants of far lower type. In America we have nearly succeeded in destroying the privilege of birth; that is, the intellectual and moral advantage a man of good stock brings into the world with him. The German translation of The Passing of the Great Race also influenced the eugenics programs and genocide that Hitler and Nazi Germany committed. A huge inspiration to me, although I cannot recommned it to other readers. Grant also supports eugenics, advocating the sterilization of "undesirables", a treatment possibly to be extended to "types which may be called weaklings" and "perhaps ultimately to worthless race types": A rigid system of selection through the elimination of those who are weak or unfitin other words social failureswould solve the whole question in one hundred years, as well as enable us to get rid of the undesirables who crowd our jails, hospitals, and insane asylums. In the chapter "The Physical Basis of Race," Grant explains his now-disproven claims that race is based in biology. Then, if the strain survives, it is by the slow reversion to one of the parent types - almost inevitably the lower. The publisher marketed The Passing of the Great Race as a scientific book, but according to a review by Frederick Adams Woods, Grant intentionally wrote the book without any footnotes or in-text citations to make it more accessible and interesting to the public. In turn, this corruption of society would lead to the subjection of the Nordic community to "inferior" races who would in turn long to be dominated and instructed by "superior" ones utilizing authoritarian powers. Man has the choice of two methods of race improvement. He reasons that the Nordic races would become extinct and the United States as it was known would cease to exist, being replaced by a fragmented country, or a corrupted caricature of itself. These center around the growing numbers of immigrants from non-Nordic Europe. The underlying idea seems to be that if publication can be suppressed the facts themselves will ultimately disappear. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/04/adam-serwer-madison-grant-white-nationalism/583258/. The theory and the book were praised by Adolf Hitler and other Nazis, so much so that the it was the first foreign book published by the Nazis[clarification needed] after they came to power.[3]. 4th rev. In a 1923 summary of book reviews on The Passing of the Great Race, Woods observed that the book was popular among the general public and favorably reviewed in scientific journals such as Science, though there were some unfavorable reviews. Grant reasons that the new immigrants were of different races and were creating separate societies within America including ethnic lobby groups, criminal syndicates, and political machines which were undermining the socio-political structure of the country and in turn the traditional Anglo-Saxon colonial stocks, as well as all Nordic stocks. Image 26 of The passing of the great race; or, The racial basis of European history, xxii INTRODUCTION proportions and historians and anthropologists, while studying these populations, have been con- cerned chiefly with the recent strata and have neglected the more ancient and submerged types. The fact that this sort of pseudoscience still informs some peoples opinions today is pathetic. He can breed from the best or he can eliminate the worst by segregation or sterilization. Why, because the information doesn't agree with your (whether you realize it or not) Jewish Marxist world view, which is based on lies and falsehoods, especially the doctrine of so-called "racial equality", of which only exists in a FANTASY WORLD. With the proportional immigration law of 1924, the descendants of the founding Americans won a victory which would last 40 years, until senator Ted Kennedy after pressure from various special interest groups, especially Jewish groups, put this law out of effect with the new immigration laws of 1965 (see the book The Culture of Critique for a detailed description of this by Dr. Kevin MacDonald), but for a time this book (along with the works of his friend Lothrop Stoddard) helped set the national mood that helped secure the immigration restrictions of 1924. The Passing of the Great Race: Or, the Racial Basis of European History. Nordic theory was strongly embraced by the racial hygiene movement in Germany in the early 1920s and 1930s; however, they typically used the term "Aryan" instead of "Nordic", though the principal Nazi ideologist, Alfred Rosenberg, preferred "Aryo-Nordic"[citation needed] or "Nordic-Atlantean". According to Woods, Grant published a fourth revised edition in 1921 that included a 176-page documentary supplement containing notes and references for some of his claims to assuage mounting criticism from scientists regarding his lack of citations. bbbb. This guy actually tries to prove why whites are superior to everyone else and even gives the idea that "lower races", like Jews, should be removed from the planet. Beginning in 1920, a series of congressional hearings was held to identify problems that immigrants were causing the United States. He primarily focuses on the Nordic race, its characteristics, and how it has fell from dominance in Europe. He specifically promotes the idea of the Nordic race as a key social group responsible for human development; thus the subtitle of the book is The Racial Basis of European History. 2, No. Historically, topically, and geographically, Grant's magnum opus covers a vast amount of ground, broadly tracing the racial basis of European history, emphasising the need . They lack the instinct of self-preservation in a racial sense. Terms of Service (last updated 12/31/2014). Our grandfathers threw away this opportunity in the blissful ignorance of national childhood and inexperience. "The Passing of the Great Race," in its original form, was designed by the author to rouse his fellow Americans to the overwhelming importance of race and to the folly of the "Melting Pot" theory, even at the expense of bitter controversy. As long as this Gothic nobility controlled the Spanish states during the endless crusades against the Moors, Spain belonged to the Nordic kingdoms, but when their blood became impaired by losses in wars waged outside of Spain and in the conquest of the Americas, the sceptre fell from this noble race into the hands of the native Iberian, who had not the physical vigor or the intellectual strength to maintain the world empire built up by the stronger race. It really deserves one star for it's completely irrational and misguided claims about racial taxonomies, its pseudo-science and its historical inaccuracies. According to Spiro, the public debate inspired by the books publication contributed to the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924 that restricted immigration to the US for forty years. The impulse upward, however, is supplied by a very small number of nations and by a very small proportion of the population in such nations. The list of venues that no longer host organized races is countless. "The idea is if we don't look out the white race will be will be utterly submerged. The message was anti-democratic and anti-Christian, which did not sit well with the patriotic public. Part two, "European Races in History," contains fourteen chapters that trace the prehistory of Europe, outline the purported differences between the three European races that Grant claims exist, and detail the origin and achievements of the allegedly superior Nordic race. The book is short and sweet, getting straight to the point without much complication. Winston, Andrew S. "The Passing of the Great Race" in, Woods, Frederick Adams. It is destructive of the best strains, spiritually, morally and physically. After reading The Passing of the Great Race, Congressman Albert Johnson, the Chair of the US House of Representatives Committee on Immigration and Naturalization from the sixty-sixth to the seventy-first Congresses, was impressed by Grants work and reached out to Grant, establishing a casual correspondence between the two according to Spiro. "Racism, the Immigration Enforcement Regime, and the Implications for Racial Inequality in the Lives of Undocumented Young Adults. In the new world that we are working and fighting for, the world of liberty, of justice and of humanity, we shall save democracy only when democracy discovers its own aristocracy as in the days when our Republic was founded. Madison Grant. The book was translated into several European languages in its day. The section of any community that produces leaders or genius of any sort is only a minute percentage. Grant demonstrated his eclecticism by taking the Anglo-Saxon tradition, borrowing a bit of racial philosophy from one writer, a bit from another, and weaving together a comprehensive view of history. The final three chapters of part one advocate for preserving the Nordic race through immigration restriction and laws banning marriage between people of different races. He marshals an impressive amount of facts and scholarship to an entirely useless aim. "The Passing of the Great Race or The Racial Basis of European History". Osborn was a paleontologist and president of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City and one of Grants closest friends. This purpose has been accomplished thoroughly, and one of the most far-reaching effects of . The book was originally published in 1916, but Wermod & Wermod Publishing Group have through their imprint The Palingenesis Project updated the text to modern standards by adding bibliographical data, index, explanatory footnotes and system of citation. The Passing of the Great Race (1916) is his most famous work"[2]. Grant helped draft the Immigration Act of 1924 that Johnson authored, which established strict quotas for immigration based on nationality. What's that you say? "Johnson, Albert." Search the history of over 797 billion The Passing of the Great Race; or, The Racial Bias of European History Madison Grant Charles Scribner's Sons, 1916. The passage of the Immigration Act of 1924 significantly limited the quota of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe, who Grant claimed were undesirable, and prevented nearly all immigration from east Asia. This scan is from a reprint printed in the journal of the American Geographical Society. I do recommend looking into modern day research on this topic. It is everywhere characterized by certain unique specializations, namely, wavy brown or blond hair and blue, gray or light brown eyes, fair skin, high, narrow and straight nose, which are associated with great stature, and a long skull, as well as with abundant head and body hair. "The Passing of The Great Race" became an immediate best seller, with new editions in 1918, 1920 and 1921, multiple printings and translations in German, French and Norwegian. A record of the desperate efforts of the conqueror classes in India to preserve the purity of their blood persists until this very day in their carefully regulated system of castes. The unfortunate fact that nearly all species of men interbreed freely leaves us no choice in the matter. The individual himself can be nourished, educated and protected by the community during his lifetime, but the state through sterilization must see to it that his line stops with him, or else future generations will be cursed with an ever increasing load of misguided sentimentalism. Grant viewed the immigration into the US of different groups as not beneficial. According to Spiro, Grants interest in conservation naturally led to his interest in eugenics, as Grant saw both movements as a way of preserving the old country from threats of extinction. Ignorance of English grammar or classic learning must not, forsooth, be held up as a reproach to the political or social aspirant. She is concerned only with the perpetuation of the species or type and heredity alone is the medium through which she acts. ", Fuentes, Agustn, Rebecca Rogers Ackermann, Sheela Athreya, Deborah Bolnick, Tina Lasisi, Sang-Hee Lee, Shay-Akil McLean, and Robin Nelson. Boas characterized The Passing of the Great Race as dangerous, dogmatic, inconsistent, and built on observations selected to justify Grants own prejudice. 4th rev. Other articles where Madison Grant is discussed: eugenics: Eugenics organizations and legislation: group, the New York lawyer Madison Grant, aroused considerable pro-eugenic interest through his best-selling book The Passing of the Great Race (1916). The book is mostly based on obsolete evolutionary and genetic concepts (hereditary mental and physical characteristics preserved through copulation in the same racial groups ) and a rather chaotic description of cultural influences through the history of mankind. A weird mixture of phrenology, social Darwinism, and anthropology for the sole purpose of establishing the superiority of the "Nordic" race and justification of eugenics in maintaining the purity of races. Anthropologist Franz Boas called The Passing of the Great Race a modern retelling of works by Joseph Arthur de Gobineau and Houston Stewart Chamberlain, even though Grant does not explicitly cite them.