Eugenics, Human Genetics and Human Failings: The Eugenics Society, its sources and its critics in Britain

This outstanding study follows the history of the eugenics movement from its roots to its heyday as the source of a science of human genetics. The primary contributions of the book are fourfold. Firstly, it points to nineteenth century social reform as contributing to the later eugenics movement. Secondly, it is based upon important archival material newly available to researchers. This material gives the reader an insight into the inner councils of the Society that could not have been obtained by relying upon published source alone. Thirdly, it treats the statistical methods involved in human genetics historically, in a way that allows the reader to follow their development and tie them to their context within the eugenics movement. Previous treatment of eugenics has not tended to view it as a science whose methods required serious consideration. Fourthly, it provides a historical introduction to the current problems connected with the huge international projects for the mapping of the human genome. New methods developed in the 1980s have created new interest in the pinpointing of the genes for diseases such as Huntington’s chorea. With this scientific success there has come a renewal of interest in, and fears of, eugenics in both Europe and America.