Robert Wald Sussman was Professor of Physical Anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis.
Not only is this book a significant contribution to the view of
race and racism in traditional ‘four-field’ anthropology in the
U.S., but it is also important to the understanding of global
notions of contemporary racism… The Myth of Race encourages us to
understand where stereotypes and misinformation fit in our
consideration of whether and how notions of biological race remain
pervasive in today’s discourse and policy.
*Times Higher Education*
Explores how the faulty concept of race embedded in our culture
affects where we live, go to school and work. It influences our
choice in friends and our treatment in the healthcare and justice
systems.
*San Francisco Examiner*
Sussman does a masterful job of tracing racist thought in western
Europe and the U.S. from 15th-century polygenics through the
eugenics of the 20th century to the continued racism and
anti-immigration stances of today’s radical Right… Although the
racists at whom Sussman directs his message are unlikely to read it
or to credit it if they do, this book should be in every library,
from high school through public to university, in hopes that it
will affect some minds before they become completely shuttered by
prejudice.
*Choice*
The idea of race, writes the author, is a cultural rather than
biological reality. Tribes always believed that strangers were
subhuman, but they could overcome their inferiority by joining the
tribe—e.g., converting to Christianity or adopting Roman
citizenship… Today, since racism is politically incorrect, Sussman
maintains, supporters have migrated en masse to the
anti-immigration movement… Sussman delivers a lucidly written,
eye-opening account of a nasty sociological battle that the good
guys have been winning for a century without eliminating a very
persistent enemy.
*Kirkus Reviews*
Sussman, an anthropology professor at Washington University in St.
Louis, explores and explodes the concept of race. He contends that,
in the face of a longstanding scientific consensus that race
possesses no biological basis, many people still mistakenly believe
that traits like aggression, intelligence, and generosity can be
traced to it. Noting that racial distinctions between humans have
no biological basis is not new, Sussman makes his contribution by
exposing the ways that academic ‘science’ is invoked to authorize
an outmoded concept. He traces the history of ideas about race,
moving briskly from the Spanish Inquisition to Linnaeus and Kant,
and offering a detailed discussion of eugenics. Lest readers
imagine this is all in the distant past, Sussman devotes his last
three chapters to the funding mechanisms that keep racist research
alive today. He shows that ‘science’ has been used in efforts to
overturn civil rights legislation, and he examines the ways racist
discourse has become intertwined with immigration policy. This
book, which is both provocative and commonsensical, will be useful
to scholars, but may also spark a broader conversation.
*Publishers Weekly*
Robert Sussman’s penetrating study of the major figures who
constructed concepts of race lays bare the personal biases, enmity,
and corruption that influenced the intellectuals and politicians
who framed modern industrialized societies. It also reveals
unexpected heroes whose clear-minded insights into human diversity
presaged our modern understanding. The Myth of Race is a
suspense-filled and richly scholarly tour de force.
*Nina G. Jablonski, Evan Pugh Professor of Anthropology,
Pennsylvania State University*
What is most remarkable is how Sussman manages to tie in past
attitudes toward race with ongoing political developments. He
demonstrates a seamless continuity of current attitudes with past
ones in a way I have not seen attempted elsewhere, and in my view
he succeeds brilliantly: the final chapters, in particular, make
chilling reading. This is a book written straight from the heart,
and it reads that way.
*Ian Tattersall, author of Race? Debunking a Scientific
Myth*
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