Eugenics, Pseudo-scientific racism etc

Rutherford, Adam (2022) ‘Where science meets fiction: the dark history of eugenics’, The Observer, Agenda, 19 June 2022, pp. 22-23.

Rutherford, Adam (2022) Control: The Dark History and Troubling Present of Eugenics London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson

Osborn, F. (1937). Development of a Eugenic Philosophy. American Sociological Review, 2(3), 389–397. https://doi.org/10.2307/2084871

Susan Currell, Susan, & Cogdell, Christina (eds.) (2006) Popular Eugenics. National Efficiency and American Mass Culture in the 1930s. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press.

Currel and Cogdell (2006) see eugenics as an "applied science or a bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance, and the theories of Friedrich Leopold August Weismann a German biologist. Historically, many of the practitioners of eugenics viewed eugenics as a science, not necessarily restricted to human populations; this embraced the views of Darwin and Social Darwinism.Eugenics was widely popular in the early decades of the 20th century The First International Congress of Eugenics in 1912 was supported by many prominent persons, including: its president Leonard Darwin, the son of Charles Darwin; honorary vice-president Winston Churchill, future Prime Minister pf the UK..

Eugenics was a controversial concept even shortly after its creation.By the mid-20th century eugenics had fallen into disfavor, having become associated with Nazi Germany.However, developments in genetic, genomic, and reproductive technologies at the end of the 20th century have raised many new questions and concerns about the meaning of eugenics and its ethical and moral status in the modern era, effectively creating a resurgence of interest in eugenics.

Galton, Francis (1904). ‘Eugenics: Its Definition, Scope, and Aims’, The American Journal of Sociology X (1): Read before he Sociological Society at a meeting in the School of Economics (London), on May 16, 1904, Karl Pearson, FRS in the chair. https://galton.org/essays/1900-1911/galton-1904-am-journ-soc-eugenics-scope-aims.htm

Barrett, Deborah; Kurzman, Charles (2004). ‘Globalizing Social Movement Theory: The Case of Eugenics’, Theory and Society 33 (5): 487-527.

McLaren, Angus (1990). Our Own Master Race: Eugenics in Canada, 1885–1945. (Canadian Social History Series.) Toronto: McClelland & Stewart. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Extract: p. 18. "By the middle decades of the twentieth century, eugenics had become widely accepted throughout the whole of the economically developed world, with the exception of the Soviet Union."