Description: This book mercilessly dismantles Hrdli?ka's racial system and exposes it as mysticism dressed up in the language of science.
Brief description: Dr. Mark A. Brandon is a specialist in modern US and European History. He focuses on racism, nationalism, anthropology, and immigration in the first half of the twentieth century. He is a professor at the University of New York in Prague and has taught courses in American, European, and World History for over twenty years.
Review Quotes:
"Mark Andrew Brandon's The Perils of Race-Thinking is a marvelously researched study that for the first time makes full use of Hrdlička's text written in Czech. Rich in detail, well documented and an excellent read, Brandon provides a concise and lucid insight into the leading anthropologist's racialized, yet very original world view. According to Hrdlička, the Slavic race did actually serve as a reservoir for the declining Indogermanic stratum of the 'white race.' He, thus, thought of his own academic, scientific research always in terms of race and racialized hierarchies. With his excellent interpretation of this ideology, Brandon provides an excellent and sound basis for further research in the field."
--Michael Hochgeschwender"In The Perils of Race Thinking Mark A. Brandon intricately interweaves the life of Ales Hrdlička, the father of physical anthropology in the United States, with global geopolitics, making clear that Hrdlička's devotion to Czech nationalism and his unwavering faith in science lay at the heart of his racial theorizing. While acknowledging Hrdlička's lasting scientific contributions to forensics and anthropometry, Brandon uses archival documents never before comprehensively considered to lay to rest the popular image of Hrdlička as a champion of racial equality."
--Arianna Huhn"Hrdlička is a central figure of the international anthropology of the early twentieth century who, until now, has defied book-length treatment, notably by a biographer who can make full use of his extensive Czech-language archive. Brandon's book skillfully places Hrdlička's Czechoslovakian political commitments and efforts as an 'anthropologist for Czechoslovakian nationhood' at the center of a narrative that connects the European and American sides of his career. It offers new insights into the theorization of race in the early twentieth century and the way in which racial arguments were mobilized into nationalist causes."
--Robert M. Oppenheim