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Martin S. Staum Labeling People: French Scholars on Society, Race and Empire, 1815-1848 (Mcgill-Queen's Studies in the History of Ideas Series)
McGill-Queen's University Press 2003-11-01 0773525807 / 9780773525801 Hardcover Fine Fine Hardcover
New. Fine in publisher's cloth in like dust jacket. Available in our UK premises for prompt dispatch worldwide.Sober, solid, and judicious. The analysis of the ideals held by members of the Paris societies casts new light on the supposedly scientific ideal about the hierarchy of human beings which lay behind France's colonial expansion as well as its harsh penal system. Staum's analysis also provides suggestive parallels to the current debate on how genes, rather than the shape of ones cranium, determine human destiny and the concomitant debate about nature versus nurture." James A. Leith, emeritus, Department of History, Queens University "This careful history of how issues concerning labeling developed in early nineteenth-century France provides extremely valuable background to colonial and imperial discourse in France n the later part of the nineteenth century, and contributes to a deeper understanding of the significance of these on-going issues in our own time. This book makes a significant contribution to research." Richard Lebrun, translator and editor of Maistre's An Examination of the Philosophy of Bacon and St. Petersburg Dialogues: Or Conversations on the Temporal Government of Providence Product Description Nineteenth-century French scholars, during a turbulent era of revolution and industrialization, ranked intelligence and character according to facial profile, skin colour, and head shape. They believed that such indicators could determine whether individuals were educable and peoples perfectible. In "Labeling People", Martin Staum examines the Paris societies of phrenology (reading intelligence and character by head shapes), geography, and ethnology and their techniques for classifying people. He shows how the work of these social scientists gave credence to the arrangement of 'races' in a hierarchy, the domination of non-European peoples, and the limitation of opportunities for ill-favoured individuals within France.While previous studies have contrasted the relative optimism of middle-class social scientists before 1848 with a later period of concern for national decline and racial degeneration, Staum demonstrates that the earlier learned societies were also fearful of turmoil at home and interested in adventure abroad. Both geographers and ethnologists created concepts of fundamental 'racial' inequality that prefigured the imperialist 'associationist' discourse of the Third Republic, believing that European tutelage would guide 'civilizable' peoples, and providing an open invitation to dominate and exploit the 'uncivilizable'.
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14.21 GBP
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