Modernism and Eugenics

"Modernism and Eugenics is aimed at academic and popular audiences, and certainly deserves wide readership. Historians of medicine will benefit from seeing eugenics as a modernist phenomenon...General readers and students, meanwhile, will find it a concise and well-argued introduction to one of the most troubling episodes in the history of medicine." (Ducan Wilson, University of Manchester, Social History of Medicine) "The most authoritative single-authored work on the transnational eugenics movement yet produced, Turda's book represents the cutting edge of research. Modernism and Eugenics raises compelling and difficult questions about the relationship of eugenics with race, modernity and nationalism that will be debated for a long time to come." (Dan Stone, Professor of Modern History, Royal Holloway, University of London) "Modernism and Eugenics adds a new, doubtless illuminating, perspective to the historiography ... ." (European Review of History, Liisi Keedus, Tartu University) "Turda significantly enhances and complicates the history of eugenics by advancing several compelling claims that engage with central historiographical themes..." (Medical History, Devon Stillwell, McMaster University) "Turda has presented a new paradigm for the study of eugenics that will no doubt prove influential in years to come." (Bradley W. Hart, California State University, Patterns of Prejudice)

Modernism and Eugenics comprehensively explores modern Europe's fixation with eugenic programmes of racial and national purification. It convincingly demonstrates that between 1870 and 1940 eugenicists were not only preoccupied with rescuing the individual from the anomie of modernity but equally championed a glorious racial destiny for the nation.Modernism and Eugenics comprehensively explores modern Europe's fixation with eugenic programmes of racial and national purification. It convincingly demonstrates that between 1870 and 1940 eugenicists were not only preoccupied with rescuing the individual from the anomie of modernity but equally championed a glorious racial destiny for the nation.