Better for All the World
The Secret History of Forced Sterilization and America's Quest for Racial Purity
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4.3 • 3 Ratings
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
A timely and gripping history of the controversial eugenics movement in America–and the scientists, social reformers and progressives who supported it.In Better for All the World, Harry Bruinius charts the little known history of eugenics in America–a movement that began in the early twentieth century and resulted in the forced sterilization of more than 65,000 people. Bruinius tells the stories of Emma and Carrie Buck, two women trapped in poverty who became the test case in the 1927 supreme court decision allowing forced sterilization for those deemed unfit to procreate. From the reformers who turned local charities into government-run welfare systems promoting social and moral purity, to the influence the American policies had on Nazi Germany’s development of “racial hygiene,” Bruinius masterfully exposes the players and legislation behind one of America’s darkest secrets.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In the early years of the 20th century, a fixation on eugenics led several states to approve forced sterilization to keep thousands of Americans from producing "morally inferior" or "feeble-minded" offspring. Bruinius's greatest accomplishment in his retelling of this blot on our nation's history is forcing readers to recognize the humanity of the victims of these policies. He begins with Carrie Buck, a young Virginia woman used by state medical authorities as a test case to get the courts to legitimize their program. At times, Bruinius's account of the events leading up to her sterilization employs a novelistic level of detail, such as recreating the mental state of participants, a technique also applied to discussing the lives of the scientists whose theories drove the eugenics movement. (These stories have their bittersweet ironies; one leading eugenicist was an epileptic, while another's daughter showed signs of dyslexia.) The tone occasionally slips into excessive moralizing when he underscores the relationship between American eugenics and Nazi Germany, but the connections are certainly there. This history isn't as "secret" as the title makes it out to be it's been told most recently by Edwin Black in War Against the Weak but Bruinius brings compelling drama to the narrative that should give it broad appeal. Photos.
