Unfit : A History of a Bad Idea.

Intro -- Contents -- Preface -- Chronology of the Biological Concept of Unfit People -- Introduction -- Part I: Before Darwin -- 1 Who Are the Unfit? -- 2 The Unfit in Biblical Times -- 3 Self- Pollution and Declining Health -- 4 Degeneracy Theory: Identifying the Innately Depraved and the Victims of Vicious Upbringing -- 5 Dangerous Classes and Social Degeneracy -- 6 Poor Laws and the Descent to Degeneracy -- 7 The Perfectibility of Man Confronts Vice and Misery -- 8 Evolutionary Ethics before Darwin -- 9 Hereditary Units and the Pessimism of the Germ Plasm -- Part II: Eugenics Takes the Spotlight -- 10 The Jukes and the Tribe of Ishmael -- 11 A Minor Prophet of Democracy -- 12 Isolating the Unfit through Compulsory Sterilization -- 13 The Emergence of Two Wings of the Eugenics Movement -- 14 Europe's Undesirables Replace the Domestic Unfit -- 15 Eugenics Becomes an International Movement -- Part III: Racism, the Holocaust, and Beyond -- 16 Racism and Human Inequality -- 17 Jews as People, Race, Culture, Religion, and Victims -- 18 The Smoke of Auschwitz -- 19 The Abandonment of Eugenics by Genetics -- 20 The Future of Eugenics -- 21 Dealing with Life's Imperfections -- Appendices -- Appendix 1: Flow Diagrams and the History of Ideas -- Appendix 2: Useful Books on the History of Eugenics -- Appendix 3: Bibliography -- Index.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2024. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.