First edition, Winner of the Arthur J. Viseltear Prize, American Public Health Association
With an emphasis on the American West, Eugenic Nation explores the long and unsettled history of eugenics in the United States. This expanded second edition includes shocking details demonstrating that eugenics continues to inform institutional and reproductive injustice. Alexandra Minna Stern draws on recently uncovered historical records to reveal patterns of racial bias in California’s sterilization program and documents compelling individual experiences. With the addition of radically new and relevant research, this edition connects the eugenic past to the genomic present with attention to the ethical and social implications of emerging genetic technologies.
First edition, Winner of the Arthur J. Viseltear Prize, American Public Health Association
With an emphasis on the American West, Eugenic Nation explores the long and unsettled history of eugenics in the United States. This expanded second edition includes shocking details demonstrating that eugenics continues to inform institutional and reproductive injustice. Alexandra Minna Stern draws on recently uncovered historical records to reveal patterns of racial bias in California’s sterilization program and documents compelling individual experiences. With the addition of radically new and relevant research, this edition connects the eugenic past to the genomic present with attention to the ethical and social implications of emerging genetic technologies.
List of Illustrations Preface to the Second Edition Abbreviations Introduction 1. Race Betterment and Tropical Medicine in Imperial San Francisco 2. Quarantine and Eugenic Gatekeeping on the US-Mexican Border 3. Instituting Eugenics in California 4. "I Like to Keep My Body Whole": Reconsidering Eugenic Sterilization in California 5. California's Eugenic Landscapes 6. Centering Eugenics on the Family 7. Contesting Hereditarianism: Reassessing the 1960s Conclusion Notes Bibliography Acknowledgments Index
Alexandra Minna Stern is Professor of American Culture, Obstetrics and Gynecology, History, and Women's Studies at the University of Michigan.
"...a fascinating and mutifaceted contribution to twentieth-century
American history."
*Social History*
"...a rich narrative of the social, political, and scientific life
of the nation, a narrative in which gender and race are central to
understanding America's continuing fascination with better
breeding."
*American Historical Review*
"Stern meticulously demonstrates the extent to which California
eugenics was simultaneously distinct from eugenics in other states
and also a major force in the national movement."
*American Studies*
"...Stern has made a significant contribution to the historical
record of eugenics."
*Isis*
"With Eugenic Nation Alexandra Stern has refocused the geographical
and chronological lens generally used to examine hereditarian
impulses in American history. The result is a fascinating and
essential contribution to the scholarship on American
eugenics."
*Journal of the History of Biology*
"Stern's discussion of eugenics and the family are of particular
interest to those debating the relationship between biology and
gender. . . . [and] it does provide material for a more nuanced
discussion of how sociologists should proceed in the era of the
human genome."
*American Journal of Sociology*
"Eugenic Nation stunningly traces the cultural continuities in
'better breeding' that refuse to stay in the past."
*Western Historical Quarterly*
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