Book Review: Changing Concepts Of Race In Britain And The United States Between The World Wars.

Part I of Essay
Scientific racism claims that biological inheritance determines the character and behavior of social groups we identify as races. Despite its history of oppression and genocide, the scientific defense of racial inequality demonstrates a disturbing persistence. Murphy Ball ....

Part II of Essay
.... The book is divided into three sections --Anthropology, Biology and Politics. In each section, Ballen compares developments in Britain and in the United States, for the case against racism developed quite differently in the two scientific communities. On both sides of the Atlantic, physical anthropology and racial taxonomy lost ground to the new social and cultural anthropology. This shift away from biological determinism was significant, but Ballen too readily equates environmentalism and cultural relativism with a defense of racial equality. ....