God's Eugenicist

Alexis Carrel and the Sociobiology of Decline
1. Auflage 2006
ISBN: 978-1-84545-172-1
Verlag: Berghahn Books

Buch, Englisch, Band 6, 268 Seiten, Format (B × H): 157 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 546 g

Reihe: Berghahn Monographs in French Studies

The temptations of a new genetically informed eugenics and of a revived faith-based, world-wide political stance, this study of the interaction of science, religion, politics and the culture of celebrity in twentieth-century Europe and America offers a fascinating and important contribution to the history of this movement. The author looks at the career of French-born physician and Nobel Prize winner, Alexis Carrel (1873-1944), as a way of understanding the popularization of eugenics through religious faith, scientific expertise, cultural despair and right-wing politics in the 1930s and 1940s. Carrel was among the most prestigious experimental surgeons of his time who also held deeply illiberal views. In Man, the Unknown (1935), he endorsed fascism and called for the elimination of the "unfit." The book became a huge international success, largely thanks to its promotion by Readers' Digest as well as by the author's friendship with Charles Lindbergh. In 1941, he went into the service of the French pro-German regime of Vichy, which appointed him to head an institution of eugenics research. His influence was remarkable, affecting radical Islamic groups as well Le Pen’s Front National that celebrated him as the "founder of ecology."

Autoren/Hrsg.

Reggiani, Andrés Horacio

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Weltgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Foreword

Herman Lebovics

Preface

Acknowledgements

List of Abbreviations

Introduction: Alexis Carrel, an Ever-Present Past

Chapter 1. Medicine, Miracles, and Politics

Chapter 2. The Making of a Scientific Celebrity

Chapter 3. The Best-Selling Eugenicist

Chapter 4. Charles Lindbergh and the Institute of Man

Chapter 5. The Commitment to Vichy

Chapter 6. Wartime France as Human Laboratory

Chapter 7. Reinventing the Eugenicist as a Humanist

Conclusion: Alexis Carrel as a lieu de mémoire

Sources and Bibliography

Über Autor(innen)

Reggiani, Andrés Horacio
Andrés Horacio Reggiani was Tocqueville Scholar and Visiting Professor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. Currently he is Professor of European History at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires, Argentina.