The Races of Europe [electronic resource] : Construction of National Identities in the Social Sciences, 1839-1939 /
McMahon, Richard.author.
This book explores a vital but neglected chapter in the histories of nationalism, racism and science. It is the first comprehensive study of the transnational scientific community that in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries attempted to classify Europe's biological races. Anthropological race classifiers produced parallel geographies, histories and hierarchies of European peoples that were crucial to the creation of national identities and to the overtly political race discourses of eugenics and popular racist ideologues. They lent nationalism the invaluable prestige of natural science, and traced the histories, conflicts and relationships of ‘national races’ back into prehistory. Racial national character stereotypes meanwhile supported competing political ideologies. The book examines the interplay between class, gender and national identity narratives and the tensions and interactions between the scientific and political agendas of classifiers. Within the elaborate transnational networks of scientific communities, for example, they had to reconcile competing national narratives. Dr Richard McMahon is Senior Research Fellow at the University of Portsmouth, UK, where he studies the transnational networks and political narratives of EU Studies. He has published several edited volumes on both race science and European integration and worked at University College Cork, Ireland, and the University of Bristol, UK.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
This book explores a vital but neglected chapter in the histories of nationalism, racism and science. It is the first comprehensive study of the transnational scientific community that in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries attempted to classify Europe's biological races. Anthropological race classifiers produced parallel geographies, histories and hierarchies of European peoples that were crucial to the creation of national identities and to the overtly political race discourses of eugenics and popular racist ideologues. They lent nationalism the invaluable prestige of natural science, and traced the histories, conflicts and relationships of ‘national races’ back into prehistory. Racial national character stereotypes meanwhile supported competing political ideologies. The book examines the interplay between class, gender and national identity narratives and the tensions and interactions between the scientific and political agendas of classifiers. Within the elaborate transnational networks of scientific communities, for example, they had to reconcile competing national narratives. Dr Richard McMahon is Senior Research Fellow at the University of Portsmouth, UK, where he studies the transnational networks and political narratives of EU Studies. He has published several edited volumes on both race science and European integration and worked at University College Cork, Ireland, and the University of Bristol, UK.
Acknowledgements; Contents; List of Figures; List of Tables; Chapter 1: Introduction: Rediscovering a Lost Science; Methodological Approach; Content of the Book; Notes; Bibliography; Part I: Networks, Methods and Narratives; Chapter 2: Race Classifiers and Anthropologists; Geographical Analysis Methods; The Interdisciplinary Alliance; Ethnology; Anthropology; Breakup of the Positivist Interdisciplinary Alliance; The Science-Politics Alliance; Politics and Positivism; The Return of the Right; The Transnational Alliance; The Geography of Power; An Expanding Cosmopolitan Community.
Germany Overtakes FranceGeographical Disintegration of Race Science; A German Sonderweg?; The Influence of Geographical Context; The East-West Divide; The Peripheral East; Conclusion; Notes; Bibliography; Chapter 3: How Classification Worked; The Science of Classification; Description Versus Quantification; A Political Science; The Struggle to Maintain the Central Tradition; The Legacy of Antiquarianism; Monogenism and Philology; Expelling the Linguists; Prising Ethnicity and Race Apart; The Scientific Rejection of Race; New Volkisch Race Sciences; Deniker and Mendel; Conclusion; Notes.
Classification FracturesAnthropology Embittered: The Franco-Prussian War; Brachycephalic Asian Aryans; The Nordic Strikes Back; Nordicist Race History; Blond Internationalism; Nordicism vs. Nationalism; Expansion and Diversity: The Mediterranean, Deniker and Civilisation; Italy's Mediterranean Narrative; Deniker's Eastern European Races; Conclusion; Notes; Bibliography; Part II: Peripheral Case Studies; Chapter 5: The Irish Dilemma: Nineteenth-Century Science and Celtic Identity; Prestigious International Celts; The Dilemma; Mediterranean Civilisation; Black Kelts and Mediterraneans.
Celtic Romance and Anglo-Saxonism French Celtic Synthesis; Anglo-Irish Race Fusion; Kymri-Kimmerians; Eastern Ethnocentrism and Purity; Conclusion; Bibliography239; Chapter 6: Poland: Scientific Independence and Nordicism; Poland's International Connections; Politicised Race Classification; The Nordicisation of Polish Anthropology; Lwów Nordicism; The Easteuropean; Conclusion; Notes; Bibliography; Chapter 7: Between International Science and Nationalism: Interwar Romanian Race Science; A Weak, Divided Discipline; Foreign Models; French Celts and Synthesis.
Social history.
Europe—History.
Ethnicity.
Historical sociology.
Social History.
European History.
Ethnicity Studies.
Historical Sociology.