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Mixing Races

From Scientific Racism to Modern Evolutionary Ideas

Paul Lawrence Farber author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Johns Hopkins University Press

Published:4th Feb '11

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Mixing Races cover

This book explores changing American views of race mixing in the twentieth century, showing how new scientific ideas transformed accepted notions of race and how those ideas played out on college campuses in the 1960s. In the 1930s it was not unusual for medical experts to caution against miscegenation, or race mixing, espousing the common opinion that it would produce biologically dysfunctional offspring. By the 1960s the scientific community roundly refuted this theory. Paul Lawrence Farber traces this revolutionary shift in scientific thought, explaining how developments in modern population biology, genetics, and anthropology proved that opposition to race mixing was a social prejudice with no justification in scientific knowledge. In the 1960s, this new knowledge helped to change attitudes toward race and discrimination, especially among college students. Their embrace of social integration caused tension on campuses across the country. Students rebelled against administrative interference in their private lives, and university regulations against interracial dating became a flashpoint in the campus revolts that revolutionized American educational institutions. Farber's provocative study is a personal one, featuring interviews with mixed-race couples and stories from the author's student years at the University of Pittsburgh. As such, Mixing Races offers a unique perspective on how contentious debates taking place on college campuses reflected radical shifts in race relations in the larger society.

Mixing Races is a fascinating look at how evolutionary science has changed alongside social beliefs. Midwest Book Review 2011

ISBN: 9780801898136

Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 9mm

Weight: 204g

136 pages