Controlling Human Heredity: 1865 to the Present

In the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century, it was widely assumed that society ought to foster the breeding of those who possessed favorable traits and discourage the breeding of those who did not. Controlled human breeding, or "eugenics" as it was called, was a movement with broad support that lasted into the 1930s. In this concise historical account, the author answers the questions of why eugenics, the search for means to propagate only "good genes," was so attractive earlier in the twentieth century, why it then fell into disrepute, and whether it has returned today in the new guise of genetic counseling.

Author: Diane Paul
Publisher: Humanities Press Intl
Published: 11/01/1995
Pages: 170
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.60lbs
Size: 9.02h x 6.05w x 0.51d
ISBN13: 9781573923439
ISBN10: 1573923435
BISAC Categories:
- Science | Life Sciences | Genetics & Genomics
- Social Science | Demography
- Social Science | Discrimination

About the Author
Diane B. Paul is the author of Controlling Human Heredity, The Politics of Heredity: Essays on Eugenics, Biomedicine, and the Nature-Nurture Debate, and The PKU Paradox: A Short History of a Genetic Disease. She has been a visiting scholar in the ethics and health program at Harvard University, an associate in zoology at Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology, and professor emerita of political science at the University of Massachusetts Boston.