Review: Nancy Ordover: American Eugenics: Race, Queer Anatomy, and the Science of Nationalism.

Abstract

In lieu of an abstract, here is the first paragraph of the review: 

The book jacket of American Eugenics, Nancy Ordover's lucid and unflinching account of the eugenics movement in the United States, makes a provocative claim: "The Nazis may have given eugenics its negative connotations, but the practice - and the 'science' that supports it - is still disturbingly alive in America." Fortunately, this is no casual allusion. Ordover argues that the history of eugenics, commonly thought to be the province of foreign fascists, is also grounded in American politics and culture of the past century. Indeed, as her study makes clear throughout, the record of eugenics in the United States is not even strictly historical, but ongoing, persistent, and enjoying a renewed respectability.