{"product_id":"race-science-and-politics-9780820356785","title":"Race: Science and Politics","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn science, race can be a useful concept--for specific, limited purposes. When race, as a way of classifying people, is drafted into the service of politics, religion, or any belief system, then danger follows. That is the focus of this classic repudiation of racism, which is as readable and timely now as when it first appeared. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eRace: Science and Politics\u003c\/i\u003e was first published in 1940, in response to the global rise of fascism and its pseudoscientific rationales for marginalizing and even exterminating \"inferior\" people. Writing for a general audience, Ruth Benedict ranges across the history of Western thought and research on race to illuminate rifts between the facts of race and the claims of racism. Rather than take issue only with the Nazis and their allies, Benedict set out to show that \u003ci\u003eall\u003c\/i\u003e racist beliefs are objectively groundless--and that is the key to the book's ongoing relevance. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e The book's bonus content includes \u003ci\u003eThe Races of Mankind\u003c\/i\u003e, a pamphlet-length distillation of the book with its own controversial role in dismantling racist theory. This edition also includes a new foreword by Judith Schachter. An anthropologist, historian, and Benedict biographer, Schachter discusses the book's importance for current readers. Also included is a foreword by anthropologist Margaret Mead from 1958, a time when colonial ties around the world were unravelling and civil rights unrest was a daily occurrence in the United States.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRUTH BENEDICT (1887-1948) was a prominent American anthropologist, a protégée of Franz Boas, and a contemporary (and close friend) of Margaret Mead. Benedict's other major books include \u003ci\u003ePatterns of Culture\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Chrysanthemum and the Sword\u003c\/i\u003e. She was also an accomplished poet, often writing under the pseudonym Anne Singleton.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"University of Georgia Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50413503643922,"sku":"9780820356785","price":32.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_b0945d9b-0f34-4287-ab08-ab0cc85efbc8.jpg?v=1729354588","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/race-science-and-politics-9780820356785","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}