Author: Victoria C. Woodhull
Publisher: Inkling Books
ISBN: 1587420422
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 332
Book Description
Francis Galton is said to have founded eugenics with an 1864 magazine article. But a single article does not make a movement and Galton, by his own admission, did little to promote the idea before 1901. This book demonstrates that eugenists have given us an inaccurate history of their movement, assigning credit to Galton, the eminent half-cousin of Charles Darwin, when the real credit belongs to a woman who was perhaps the most radical nineteenth-century American feminist.That woman was Victoria Woodhull, the first woman to run for U.S. President and, with her sister, the first woman stockbroker on Wall Street. This book contains all her major speeches and writings on eugenics, showing that she was the first of either sex to take to the road and, in hundreds of speeches across the U.S., champion the idea of creating a perfected humanity by breeding perfect children. She even beat Galton in his own land, moving to England in 1876 and introducing eugenics there.Woodhull was not a shy about her role. The title for this book comes from the headline of a 1912 London newspaper article proclaiming her Lady Eugenist. In 1927, shortly before she died, the New York Times would carry an article in which she praised eugenic sterilization and claimed to have advocated that fifty years ago in my book Marriage of the Unfit.
Lady Eugenist
Author: Victoria C. Woodhull
Publisher: Inkling Books
ISBN: 1587420422
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 332
Book Description
Francis Galton is said to have founded eugenics with an 1864 magazine article. But a single article does not make a movement and Galton, by his own admission, did little to promote the idea before 1901. This book demonstrates that eugenists have given us an inaccurate history of their movement, assigning credit to Galton, the eminent half-cousin of Charles Darwin, when the real credit belongs to a woman who was perhaps the most radical nineteenth-century American feminist.That woman was Victoria Woodhull, the first woman to run for U.S. President and, with her sister, the first woman stockbroker on Wall Street. This book contains all her major speeches and writings on eugenics, showing that she was the first of either sex to take to the road and, in hundreds of speeches across the U.S., champion the idea of creating a perfected humanity by breeding perfect children. She even beat Galton in his own land, moving to England in 1876 and introducing eugenics there.Woodhull was not a shy about her role. The title for this book comes from the headline of a 1912 London newspaper article proclaiming her Lady Eugenist. In 1927, shortly before she died, the New York Times would carry an article in which she praised eugenic sterilization and claimed to have advocated that fifty years ago in my book Marriage of the Unfit.
Publisher: Inkling Books
ISBN: 1587420422
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 332
Book Description
Francis Galton is said to have founded eugenics with an 1864 magazine article. But a single article does not make a movement and Galton, by his own admission, did little to promote the idea before 1901. This book demonstrates that eugenists have given us an inaccurate history of their movement, assigning credit to Galton, the eminent half-cousin of Charles Darwin, when the real credit belongs to a woman who was perhaps the most radical nineteenth-century American feminist.That woman was Victoria Woodhull, the first woman to run for U.S. President and, with her sister, the first woman stockbroker on Wall Street. This book contains all her major speeches and writings on eugenics, showing that she was the first of either sex to take to the road and, in hundreds of speeches across the U.S., champion the idea of creating a perfected humanity by breeding perfect children. She even beat Galton in his own land, moving to England in 1876 and introducing eugenics there.Woodhull was not a shy about her role. The title for this book comes from the headline of a 1912 London newspaper article proclaiming her Lady Eugenist. In 1927, shortly before she died, the New York Times would carry an article in which she praised eugenic sterilization and claimed to have advocated that fifty years ago in my book Marriage of the Unfit.
Margaret Sanger's Eugenic Legacy
Author: Angela Franks
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786454040
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 361
Book Description
Margaret Sanger, the American birth-control and population-control advocate who founded Planned Parenthood, stands like a giant among her contemporaries. With her dominating yet winning personality, she helped generate shifts of opinion on issues that were not even publicly discussed prior to her activism, while her leadership was arguably the single most important factor in achieving social and legislative victories that set the parameters for today's political discussion of family-planning funding, population-control aid, and even sex education. This work addresses Sanger's ideas concerning birth control, eugenics, population control, and sterilization against the backdrop of the larger eugenic context.
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786454040
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 361
Book Description
Margaret Sanger, the American birth-control and population-control advocate who founded Planned Parenthood, stands like a giant among her contemporaries. With her dominating yet winning personality, she helped generate shifts of opinion on issues that were not even publicly discussed prior to her activism, while her leadership was arguably the single most important factor in achieving social and legislative victories that set the parameters for today's political discussion of family-planning funding, population-control aid, and even sex education. This work addresses Sanger's ideas concerning birth control, eugenics, population control, and sterilization against the backdrop of the larger eugenic context.
The Unfit Heiress
Author: Audrey Clare Farley
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
ISBN: 1538753340
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 288
Book Description
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2021 BY THE NEW YORK POST AND BOOK RIOT NAMED A BEST TRUE CRIME BOOK OF 2021 BY CRIMEREADS For readers of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and The Phantom of Fifth Avenue, "a sensational story told with nuance and humanity" (Susannah Cahalan, #1 New York Times bestselling author) about the sordid court battle between Ann Cooper Hewitt and her socialite mother. At the turn of the twentieth century, emboldened American women began to seek passion and livelihood outside the home. This alarmed authorities, who feared "over-sexed" women could destroy civilization, either by crossing the color line or passing their evident defects on to their children. Set against this backdrop, The Unfit Heiress chronicles the fight for inheritance between Ann Cooper Hewitt and her socialite mother Maryon, who had her daughter sterilized without her knowledge. A sensational court case ensued, and powerful eugenicists saw an opportunity to restrict reproductive rights in America for decades to come. This riveting story unfolds through the brilliant research of Audrey Clare Farley, who captures the interior lives of these women on the pages and poses questions that remain relevant today: What does it mean to be "unfit" for motherhood? How do racial anxieties continue to influence who does and does not reproduce? In the battle for reproductive rights, can we forgive those who side against us? And can we forgive our mothers if they are the ones who inflict the deepest wounds?
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
ISBN: 1538753340
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 288
Book Description
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2021 BY THE NEW YORK POST AND BOOK RIOT NAMED A BEST TRUE CRIME BOOK OF 2021 BY CRIMEREADS For readers of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and The Phantom of Fifth Avenue, "a sensational story told with nuance and humanity" (Susannah Cahalan, #1 New York Times bestselling author) about the sordid court battle between Ann Cooper Hewitt and her socialite mother. At the turn of the twentieth century, emboldened American women began to seek passion and livelihood outside the home. This alarmed authorities, who feared "over-sexed" women could destroy civilization, either by crossing the color line or passing their evident defects on to their children. Set against this backdrop, The Unfit Heiress chronicles the fight for inheritance between Ann Cooper Hewitt and her socialite mother Maryon, who had her daughter sterilized without her knowledge. A sensational court case ensued, and powerful eugenicists saw an opportunity to restrict reproductive rights in America for decades to come. This riveting story unfolds through the brilliant research of Audrey Clare Farley, who captures the interior lives of these women on the pages and poses questions that remain relevant today: What does it mean to be "unfit" for motherhood? How do racial anxieties continue to influence who does and does not reproduce? In the battle for reproductive rights, can we forgive those who side against us? And can we forgive our mothers if they are the ones who inflict the deepest wounds?
Humanitarian Government
Author: Victoria C Woodhull
Publisher: Inkling Books
ISBN: 1587420465
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 112
Book Description
Humanitarian Government was published by Victoria Woodhull in 1890 London. This is a clean and easily read facsimile of that 68-page booklet. It describes a government that would be guided by eugenic principles and is Chapter 6 in the book, Lady Eugenist: Feminist Eugenics in the Speeches and Writings of Victoria Woodhull. Many readers may prefer to get that printed edition instead or have it purchased by their public or school library, so others can use it. (Lady Eugenist is also available as a ebook.) The ebook also includes two additional chapters from Lady Eugenist: the introduction, Chapter 1, Was Victoria Woodhull the First Eugenist? and Chapter 3, Press Notices, which are eugenic-related selections from newspapers articles about Victoria Woodhull taken from her 1890 book, The Human Body The Temple of God. The entire ebook is 112 pages long, and there are no digital rights management restrictions on the reader's ability to print or cut-and-paste.
Publisher: Inkling Books
ISBN: 1587420465
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 112
Book Description
Humanitarian Government was published by Victoria Woodhull in 1890 London. This is a clean and easily read facsimile of that 68-page booklet. It describes a government that would be guided by eugenic principles and is Chapter 6 in the book, Lady Eugenist: Feminist Eugenics in the Speeches and Writings of Victoria Woodhull. Many readers may prefer to get that printed edition instead or have it purchased by their public or school library, so others can use it. (Lady Eugenist is also available as a ebook.) The ebook also includes two additional chapters from Lady Eugenist: the introduction, Chapter 1, Was Victoria Woodhull the First Eugenist? and Chapter 3, Press Notices, which are eugenic-related selections from newspapers articles about Victoria Woodhull taken from her 1890 book, The Human Body The Temple of God. The entire ebook is 112 pages long, and there are no digital rights management restrictions on the reader's ability to print or cut-and-paste.
Children-Their Rights and Privileges
Author:
Publisher: Inkling Books
ISBN: 1587420430
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 56
Book Description
Publisher: Inkling Books
ISBN: 1587420430
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 56
Book Description
The Garden of Eden; Or, Paradise Lost and Found
Author: Victoria C Woodhull
Publisher: Inkling Books
ISBN: 1587420449
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 102
Book Description
The Garden of Eden was first published in 1875. This version is a 58-page facsimile of the version in The Human Body The Temple of God published in 1890 London. Here Victoria Woodhull explains her controversial idea that the biblical story of the Garden of Eden is an allegory about the human body. This ebook includes as Chapter 3, Press Notices, which are eugenic-related selections from newspapers and letters articles published in The Human Body. The Garden of Eden is Chapter 4 in the book, Lady Eugenist: Feminist Eugenics in the Speeches and Writings of Victoria Woodhull. Many readers may prefer to get that printed edition instead or have it purchased by their public or school library, so others can use it. (Lady Eugenist is also available as a ebook.) This ebook also includes one additional chapter from Lady Eugenist: the introduction, Chapter 1, Was Victoria Woodhull the First Eugenist? The entire ebook is 102 pages long, and there are no digital rights management restrictions on the reader's ability to print or cut-and-paste.
Publisher: Inkling Books
ISBN: 1587420449
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 102
Book Description
The Garden of Eden was first published in 1875. This version is a 58-page facsimile of the version in The Human Body The Temple of God published in 1890 London. Here Victoria Woodhull explains her controversial idea that the biblical story of the Garden of Eden is an allegory about the human body. This ebook includes as Chapter 3, Press Notices, which are eugenic-related selections from newspapers and letters articles published in The Human Body. The Garden of Eden is Chapter 4 in the book, Lady Eugenist: Feminist Eugenics in the Speeches and Writings of Victoria Woodhull. Many readers may prefer to get that printed edition instead or have it purchased by their public or school library, so others can use it. (Lady Eugenist is also available as a ebook.) This ebook also includes one additional chapter from Lady Eugenist: the introduction, Chapter 1, Was Victoria Woodhull the First Eugenist? The entire ebook is 102 pages long, and there are no digital rights management restrictions on the reader's ability to print or cut-and-paste.
Evolutionary Rhetoric
Author: Wendy Hayden
Publisher: SIU Press
ISBN: 0809331020
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 274
Book Description
In Evolutionary Rhetoric, scholar Wendy Hayden provides a comprehensive examination of the relationship between scientific and feminist rhetorics in free-love feminism, studying the movement from its inception in the 1850s to its dark turn toward eugenics in the early 1900s. Hayden organizes her provocative study by scientific discipline—evolution, physiology, bacteriology, embryology, and heredity. Each chapter explores how free-love feminists adopted the evidence of that discipline in their arguments for increased sex education, women’s sexual rights, reproductive freedom, and the abolition of a marriage system that repressed the rights and the sexuality of women. Hayden takes our conventional understanding of the relationship between nineteenth-century feminism and science and expands it. The author provides examples of the powerful words of free-love feminists to show exactly how these exceptional women used science as a rhetorical platform to promote feminist, and often radical, social reforms. Considering why the free-love movement has not yet been studied, Hayden also discusses how the recovery of this movement may impact larger goals in the recovery of women’s rhetoric. This important and timely study of a long-forgotten movement adds to our understanding of the complexities of the history of feminism.
Publisher: SIU Press
ISBN: 0809331020
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 274
Book Description
In Evolutionary Rhetoric, scholar Wendy Hayden provides a comprehensive examination of the relationship between scientific and feminist rhetorics in free-love feminism, studying the movement from its inception in the 1850s to its dark turn toward eugenics in the early 1900s. Hayden organizes her provocative study by scientific discipline—evolution, physiology, bacteriology, embryology, and heredity. Each chapter explores how free-love feminists adopted the evidence of that discipline in their arguments for increased sex education, women’s sexual rights, reproductive freedom, and the abolition of a marriage system that repressed the rights and the sexuality of women. Hayden takes our conventional understanding of the relationship between nineteenth-century feminism and science and expands it. The author provides examples of the powerful words of free-love feminists to show exactly how these exceptional women used science as a rhetorical platform to promote feminist, and often radical, social reforms. Considering why the free-love movement has not yet been studied, Hayden also discusses how the recovery of this movement may impact larger goals in the recovery of women’s rhetoric. This important and timely study of a long-forgotten movement adds to our understanding of the complexities of the history of feminism.
Modernism and Eugenics
Author: Donald J. Childs
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521806015
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 284
Book Description
In Modernism and Eugenics, first published in 2001, Donald Childs shows how Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot and W. B. Yeats believed in eugenics, the science of race improvement and adapted this scientific discourse to the language and purposes of the modern imagination. Childs traces the impact of the eugenics movement on such modernist works as Mrs Dalloway, A Room of One's Own, The Waste Land and Yeats's late poetry and early plays. The language of eugenics moves, he claims, between public discourse and personal perspectives. It informs Woolf's theorization of woman's imagination; in Eliot's poetry, it pictures as a nightmare the myriad contemporary eugenical threats to humankind's biological and cultural future. And for Yeats, it becomes integral to his engagement with the occult and his commitment to Irish Nationalism. This is an interesting study of a controversial theme which reveals the centrality of eugenics in the life and work of several major modernist writers.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521806015
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 284
Book Description
In Modernism and Eugenics, first published in 2001, Donald Childs shows how Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot and W. B. Yeats believed in eugenics, the science of race improvement and adapted this scientific discourse to the language and purposes of the modern imagination. Childs traces the impact of the eugenics movement on such modernist works as Mrs Dalloway, A Room of One's Own, The Waste Land and Yeats's late poetry and early plays. The language of eugenics moves, he claims, between public discourse and personal perspectives. It informs Woolf's theorization of woman's imagination; in Eliot's poetry, it pictures as a nightmare the myriad contemporary eugenical threats to humankind's biological and cultural future. And for Yeats, it becomes integral to his engagement with the occult and his commitment to Irish Nationalism. This is an interesting study of a controversial theme which reveals the centrality of eugenics in the life and work of several major modernist writers.
Mexican Gothic
Author: Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Publisher: Del Rey
ISBN: 052562080X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “It’s Lovecraft meets the Brontës in Latin America, and after a slow-burn start Mexican Gothic gets seriously weird.”—The Guardian ONE OF TIME’S 100 BEST MYSTERY AND THRILLER BOOKS OF ALL TIME • WINNER OF THE LOCUS AWARD • NOMINATED FOR THE BRAM STOKER AWARD ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, NPR, The Washington Post, Tordotcom, Marie Claire, Vox, Mashable, Men’s Health, Library Journal, Book Riot, LibraryReads An isolated mansion. A chillingly charismatic aristocrat. And a brave socialite drawn to expose their treacherous secrets. . . . From the author of Gods of Jade and Shadow comes “a terrifying twist on classic gothic horror” (Kirkus Reviews) set in glamorous 1950s Mexico. After receiving a frantic letter from her newly-wed cousin begging for someone to save her from a mysterious doom, Noemí Taboada heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside. She’s not sure what she will find—her cousin’s husband, a handsome Englishman, is a stranger, and Noemí knows little about the region. Noemí is also an unlikely rescuer: She’s a glamorous debutante, and her chic gowns and perfect red lipstick are more suited for cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing. But she’s also tough and smart, with an indomitable will, and she is not afraid: Not of her cousin’s new husband, who is both menacing and alluring; not of his father, the ancient patriarch who seems to be fascinated by Noemí; and not even of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemi’s dreams with visions of blood and doom. Her only ally in this inhospitable abode is the family’s youngest son. Shy and gentle, he seems to want to help Noemí, but might also be hiding dark knowledge of his family’s past. For there are many secrets behind the walls of High Place. The family’s once colossal wealth and faded mining empire kept them from prying eyes, but as Noemí digs deeper she unearths stories of violence and madness. And Noemí, mesmerized by the terrifying yet seductive world of High Place, may soon find it impossible to ever leave this enigmatic house behind. “It’s as if a supernatural power compels us to turn the pages of the gripping Mexican Gothic.”—The Washington Post “Mexican Gothic is the perfect summer horror read, and marks Moreno-Garcia with her hypnotic and engaging prose as one of the genre’s most exciting talents.”—Nerdist “A period thriller as rich in suspense as it is in lush ’50s atmosphere.”—Entertainment Weekly
Publisher: Del Rey
ISBN: 052562080X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “It’s Lovecraft meets the Brontës in Latin America, and after a slow-burn start Mexican Gothic gets seriously weird.”—The Guardian ONE OF TIME’S 100 BEST MYSTERY AND THRILLER BOOKS OF ALL TIME • WINNER OF THE LOCUS AWARD • NOMINATED FOR THE BRAM STOKER AWARD ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, NPR, The Washington Post, Tordotcom, Marie Claire, Vox, Mashable, Men’s Health, Library Journal, Book Riot, LibraryReads An isolated mansion. A chillingly charismatic aristocrat. And a brave socialite drawn to expose their treacherous secrets. . . . From the author of Gods of Jade and Shadow comes “a terrifying twist on classic gothic horror” (Kirkus Reviews) set in glamorous 1950s Mexico. After receiving a frantic letter from her newly-wed cousin begging for someone to save her from a mysterious doom, Noemí Taboada heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside. She’s not sure what she will find—her cousin’s husband, a handsome Englishman, is a stranger, and Noemí knows little about the region. Noemí is also an unlikely rescuer: She’s a glamorous debutante, and her chic gowns and perfect red lipstick are more suited for cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing. But she’s also tough and smart, with an indomitable will, and she is not afraid: Not of her cousin’s new husband, who is both menacing and alluring; not of his father, the ancient patriarch who seems to be fascinated by Noemí; and not even of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemi’s dreams with visions of blood and doom. Her only ally in this inhospitable abode is the family’s youngest son. Shy and gentle, he seems to want to help Noemí, but might also be hiding dark knowledge of his family’s past. For there are many secrets behind the walls of High Place. The family’s once colossal wealth and faded mining empire kept them from prying eyes, but as Noemí digs deeper she unearths stories of violence and madness. And Noemí, mesmerized by the terrifying yet seductive world of High Place, may soon find it impossible to ever leave this enigmatic house behind. “It’s as if a supernatural power compels us to turn the pages of the gripping Mexican Gothic.”—The Washington Post “Mexican Gothic is the perfect summer horror read, and marks Moreno-Garcia with her hypnotic and engaging prose as one of the genre’s most exciting talents.”—Nerdist “A period thriller as rich in suspense as it is in lush ’50s atmosphere.”—Entertainment Weekly
Imbeciles
Author: Adam Cohen
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101980834
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 418
Book Description
Longlisted for the 2016 National Book Award for Nonfiction One of America’s great miscarriages of justice, the Supreme Court’s infamous 1927 Buck v. Bell ruling made government sterilization of “undesirable” citizens the law of the land In 1927, the Supreme Court handed down a ruling so disturbing, ignorant, and cruel that it stands as one of the great injustices in American history. In Imbeciles, bestselling author Adam Cohen exposes the court’s decision to allow the sterilization of a young woman it wrongly thought to be “feebleminded” and to champion the mass eugenic sterilization of undesirable citizens for the greater good of the country. The 8–1 ruling was signed by some of the most revered figures in American law—including Chief Justice William Howard Taft, a former U.S. president; and Louis Brandeis, a progressive icon. Oliver Wendell Holmes, considered by many the greatest Supreme Court justice in history, wrote the majority opinion, including the court’s famous declaration “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.” Imbeciles is the shocking story of Buck v. Bell, a legal case that challenges our faith in American justice. A gripping courtroom drama, it pits a helpless young woman against powerful scientists, lawyers, and judges who believed that eugenic measures were necessary to save the nation from being “swamped with incompetence.” At the center was Carrie Buck, who was born into a poor family in Charlottesville, Virginia, and taken in by a foster family, until she became pregnant out of wedlock. She was then declared “feebleminded” and shipped off to the Colony for Epileptics and Feeble-Minded. Buck v. Bell unfolded against the backdrop of a nation in the thrall of eugenics, which many Americans thought would uplift the human race. Congress embraced this fervor, enacting the first laws designed to prevent immigration by Italians, Jews, and other groups charged with being genetically inferior. Cohen shows how Buck arrived at the colony at just the wrong time, when influential scientists and politicians were looking for a “test case” to determine whether Virginia’s new eugenic sterilization law could withstand a legal challenge. A cabal of powerful men lined up against her, and no one stood up for her—not even her lawyer, who, it is now clear, was in collusion with the men who wanted her sterilized. In the end, Buck’s case was heard by the Supreme Court, the institution established by the founders to ensure that justice would prevail. The court could have seen through the false claim that Buck was a threat to the gene pool, or it could have found that forced sterilization was a violation of her rights. Instead, Holmes, a scion of several prominent Boston Brahmin families, who was raised to believe in the superiority of his own bloodlines, wrote a vicious, haunting decision upholding Buck’s sterilization and imploring the nation to sterilize many more. Holmes got his wish, and before the madness ended some sixty to seventy thousand Americans were sterilized. Cohen overturns cherished myths and demolishes lauded figures in relentless pursuit of the truth. With the intellectual force of a legal brief and the passion of a front-page exposé, Imbeciles is an ardent indictment of our champions of justice and our optimistic faith in progress, as well as a triumph of American legal and social history.
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101980834
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 418
Book Description
Longlisted for the 2016 National Book Award for Nonfiction One of America’s great miscarriages of justice, the Supreme Court’s infamous 1927 Buck v. Bell ruling made government sterilization of “undesirable” citizens the law of the land In 1927, the Supreme Court handed down a ruling so disturbing, ignorant, and cruel that it stands as one of the great injustices in American history. In Imbeciles, bestselling author Adam Cohen exposes the court’s decision to allow the sterilization of a young woman it wrongly thought to be “feebleminded” and to champion the mass eugenic sterilization of undesirable citizens for the greater good of the country. The 8–1 ruling was signed by some of the most revered figures in American law—including Chief Justice William Howard Taft, a former U.S. president; and Louis Brandeis, a progressive icon. Oliver Wendell Holmes, considered by many the greatest Supreme Court justice in history, wrote the majority opinion, including the court’s famous declaration “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.” Imbeciles is the shocking story of Buck v. Bell, a legal case that challenges our faith in American justice. A gripping courtroom drama, it pits a helpless young woman against powerful scientists, lawyers, and judges who believed that eugenic measures were necessary to save the nation from being “swamped with incompetence.” At the center was Carrie Buck, who was born into a poor family in Charlottesville, Virginia, and taken in by a foster family, until she became pregnant out of wedlock. She was then declared “feebleminded” and shipped off to the Colony for Epileptics and Feeble-Minded. Buck v. Bell unfolded against the backdrop of a nation in the thrall of eugenics, which many Americans thought would uplift the human race. Congress embraced this fervor, enacting the first laws designed to prevent immigration by Italians, Jews, and other groups charged with being genetically inferior. Cohen shows how Buck arrived at the colony at just the wrong time, when influential scientists and politicians were looking for a “test case” to determine whether Virginia’s new eugenic sterilization law could withstand a legal challenge. A cabal of powerful men lined up against her, and no one stood up for her—not even her lawyer, who, it is now clear, was in collusion with the men who wanted her sterilized. In the end, Buck’s case was heard by the Supreme Court, the institution established by the founders to ensure that justice would prevail. The court could have seen through the false claim that Buck was a threat to the gene pool, or it could have found that forced sterilization was a violation of her rights. Instead, Holmes, a scion of several prominent Boston Brahmin families, who was raised to believe in the superiority of his own bloodlines, wrote a vicious, haunting decision upholding Buck’s sterilization and imploring the nation to sterilize many more. Holmes got his wish, and before the madness ended some sixty to seventy thousand Americans were sterilized. Cohen overturns cherished myths and demolishes lauded figures in relentless pursuit of the truth. With the intellectual force of a legal brief and the passion of a front-page exposé, Imbeciles is an ardent indictment of our champions of justice and our optimistic faith in progress, as well as a triumph of American legal and social history.