Building the New Man
Eugenics, Racial Science and Genetics in Twentieth-Century Italy
Francesco Cassata, University of Turin
Translated by Erin O'Loughlin
Based on previously unexplored archival documentation,
this book offers the first general overview of the history
of Italian eugenics, not limited to the decades of Fascist
regime, but instead ranging from the beginning of the
1900s to the first half of the 1970s.
Discusses several fundamental themes of the comparative history of eugenics: the importance of the Latin eugenic model; the relationship between eugenics and fascism; the influence of Catholicism on the eugenic discourse and the complex links between genetics and eugenics. It examines the Liberal pre-fascist period and the post-WW2 transition from fascist and racial eugenics to medical and human genetics. As far as fascist eugenics is concerned, the book provides a refreshing analysis, considering Italian eugenics as the most important case-study in order to define Latin eugenics as an alternative model to its Anglo-American, German and Scandinavian counterparts. Analyses in detail the nature-nurture debate during the State racist campaign in fascist Italy (1938–1943) as a boundary tool in the contraposition between the different institutional, political and ideological currents of fascist racism.
Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1. Between Lombroso and Pareto: the Italian way to eugenics
Chapter 2. Eugenics and dysgenics of war
Chapter 3. Regenerating Italy (1919–1924)
Chapter 4. Quality through quantity: eugenics in fascist Italy
Chapter 5. Eugenics and racism (1938–1943)
Chapter 6. Toward a new eugenics
Chapter 7. Against UNESCO: Italian eugenics and American scientific racism
Conclusions
Bibliography
This is the third volume in the CEU
Press Studies in the History of Medicine series
"The relationship between fascism, the Catholic
Church, and the eugenics movement are the heart of this
important study. Cassata concentrates his analysis on
the concept of Latin eugenics - the movement as it existed
in countries with large Catholic populations and/or
where Catholicism was the state religion. Thus, unlike
US, where sterilization laws were seen as the best method
for controlling those deemed unfit, Latin countries
such as Italy encouraged a positive eugenics that encouraged
the fittest in society to have more children. Summing
up: Recommended." - Choice
2011
438 pages
ISBN 978-963-9776-83-8 cloth $55.00 / €44.95 /
£40.00
|
