The Passing of the Great Race: Or, The Racial
Basis of European History is a 1916 book by
American eugenicist, lawyer, and amateur anthropologist
Madison Grant.
Though influential, the book was largely ignored
when it first appeared; it went through several
revisions and editions, but was never a best
seller.
Grant expounds a theory of Nordic superiority
and argues for a strong eugenics program.
Grant's proposal to create a strong eugenics
program for the Nordic population to survive
was repudiated by Americans in the 1930s and
Europeans after 1945.
It is considered one of the main works in
the 20th century tradition of scientific racism.
== Contents ==
The book is organized into two sections:
=== First section ===
The first section deals with the basis of
race as well as Grant's own stances on political
issues of the day (eugenics).
These center around the growing numbers of
immigrants from non-Nordic Europe.
Grant claims that the members of contemporary
American Protestant society who could trace
their ancestry back to Colonial times were
being out-bred by immigrant and "inferior"
racial stocks.
Grant reasons that the United States has always
been a Nordic country, consisting of Nordic
immigrants from England, Scotland, and the
Netherlands in Colonial times and of Nordic
immigrants from Ireland and Germany in later
times.
Grant feels that certain parts of Europe were
underdeveloped and a source of racial stocks
unqualified for the Nordic political structure
of the U.S. Grant is also interested in the
impact of the expansion of U.S. Black population
into the urban areas of the North.
Grant reasons that the new immigrants were
of different races and were creating separate
societies within America including ethnic
lobby groups, criminal syndicates, and political
machines which were undermining the socio-political
structure of the country and in turn the traditional
Anglo-Saxon colonial stocks, as well as all
Nordic stocks.
His analysis of population studies, economic
utility factors, labor supply, etc. purports
to show that the consequence of this subversion
was evident in the decreasing quality of life,
lower birth rates, and corruption of the contemporary
American society.
He reasons that the Nordic races would become
extinct and the United States as it was known
would cease to exist, being replaced by a
fragmented country, or a corrupted caricature
of itself.
=== Second section ===
The second part of the book deals with the
history of the three European races: Nordic,
Alpine, and Mediterranean, as well as their
physical and mental characteristics.
This part of the book ties together strands
of thinking regarding Aryan migration theory,
ethnology, anthropology, and history into
a broad survey of the historical rise and
fall, and expansion and retraction, of the
European races from their homelands.
It similarly connects the history of America
with that of Europe, especially its Nordic
nations.
== Nordic theory ==
Grant's book is an elaborate work of racial
hygiene detailing the racial history of the
world.
He draws on the scientific theories of genetics
and Darwinian evolution, as well as the writings
of previous eugenicists and racialist authors,
to create a clearly written synthesis aimed
at the general reader.In summary the book
elaborates Grant's interpretation of contemporary
anthropology and history, which he sees as
revolving chiefly around the idea of race
rather than environment.
He specifically promotes the idea of the Nordic
race as a key social group responsible for
human development; thus the subtitle of the
book is The Racial Basis of European History.
Grant also supports eugenics, advocating the
sterilization of "undesirables", a treatment
possibly to be extended to "types which may
be called weaklings" and "perhaps ultimately
to worthless race types":
A rigid system of selection through the elimination
of those who are weak or unfit—in other
words social failures—would solve the whole
question in one hundred years, as well as
enable us to get rid of the undesirables who
crowd our jails, hospitals, and insane asylums.
The individual himself can be nourished, educated
and protected by the community during his
lifetime, but the state through sterilization
must see to it that his line stops with him,
or else future generations will be cursed
with an ever increasing load of misguided
sentimentalism.
This is a practical, merciful, and inevitable
solution of the whole problem, and can be
applied to an ever widening circle of social
discards, beginning always with the criminal,
the diseased, and the insane, and extending
gradually to types which may be called weaklings
rather than defectives, and perhaps ultimately
to worthless race types.
Other messages in his work include recommendations
to install civil organizations through the
public health system to establish quasi-dictatorships
in their particular fields with the administrative
powers to segregate unfavorable races in ghettos.
He also mentions that the expansion of non-Nordic
race types in the Nordic system of freedom
would actually mean a slavery to desires,
passions, and base behaviors.
In turn, this corruption of society would
lead to the subjection of the Nordic community
to "inferior" races who would in turn long
to be dominated and instructed by "superior"
ones utilizing authoritarian powers.
The result would be the submergence of the
indigenous Nordic races under a corrupt and
enfeebled system dominated by inferior races.
=== Grant's view of Nordic theory ===
Nordic theory, in Grant's formulation, was
largely copied from the work of Arthur de
Gobineau that appeared in the 1850s, except
that Gobineau used the study of language while
Grant used physical anthropology to define
races.
Both divided mankind into primarily three
distinct races: Caucasoids (based in Europe,
North Africa, and Western Asia), Negroids
(based in Sub-Saharan Africa), and Mongoloids
(based in Central and Eastern Asia).
Nordic theory, however, further subdivided
Caucasoids into three groups: Nordics (who
inhabited Scandinavia, northern Germany, Austria-Hungary,
parts of England, Scotland and Ireland, Holland,
Flanders, parts of northern France, parts
of Russia, and northern Poland, and parts
of Central Europe), Alpines (whose territory
stretched from central Europe, parts of northern
Italy, southern Poland to the Balkans/Southeastern
Europe, central/southern Russia, Turkey and
even into Central Asia), and Mediterraneans
(who inhabited southern France, the Iberian
peninsula, southern Italy, Greece, Wales,
parts of England and Scotland, North Africa,
and parts of the Middle East and Central and
South Asia).
In Grant's view, Nordics probably evolved
in a climate which "must have been such as
to impose a rigid elimination of defectives
through the agency of hard winters and the
necessity of industry and foresight in providing
the year's food, clothing, and shelter during
the short summer.
Such demands on energy, if long continued,
would produce a strong, virile, and self-contained
race which would inevitably overwhelm in battle
nations whose weaker elements had not been
purged by the conditions of an equally severe
environment" (p. 170).
The "Proto-Nordic" human, Grant reasoned,
probably evolved in "forests and plains of
eastern Germany, Poland and Russia" (p. 170).
The Nordic, in his hypothesis, was "Homo europaeus,
the white man par excellence.
It is everywhere characterized by certain
unique specializations, namely, wavy brown
or blond hair and blue, gray or light brown
eyes, fair skin, high, narrow and straight
nose, which are associated with great stature,
and a long skull, as well as with abundant
head and body hair."
Grant categorized the Alpines as being the
lowest of the three European races, with the
Nordics as the pinnacle of civilization.
The Nordics are, all over the world, a race
of soldiers, sailors, adventurers, and explorers,
but above all, of rulers, organizers, and
aristocrats in sharp contrast to the essentially
peasant character of the Alpines.
Chivalry and knighthood, and their still surviving
but greatly impaired counterparts, are peculiarly
Nordic traits, and feudalism, class distinctions,
and race pride among Europeans are traceable
for the most part to the north.
Grant, while aware of the "Nordic Migration
Theory" into the Mediterranean, appears to
reject this theory as an explanation for the
high civilization features of the Greco-Roman
world.
The mental characteristics of the Mediterranean
race are well known, and this race, while
inferior in bodily stamina to both the Nordic
and the Alpine, is probably the superior of
both, certainly of the Alpines, in intellectual
attainments.
In the field of art its superiority to both
the other European races is unquestioned.
Yet, while Grant allowed Mediterraneans to
have abilities in art, as quoted above, later
in the text in a sop to Nordic Migration Theorists,
he remarked that true Mediterranean achievements
were only through admixture with Nordics:
This is the race that gave the world the great
civilizations of Egypt, of Crete, of Phoenicia
including Carthage, of Etruria and of Mycenean
Greece.
It gave us, when mixed and invigorated with
Nordic elements, the most splendid of all
civilizations, that of ancient Hellas, and
the most enduring of political organizations,
the Roman State.
To what extent the Mediterranean race entered
into the blood and civilization of Rome, it
is now difficult to say, but the traditions
of the Eternal City, its love of organization,
of law and military efficiency, as well as
the Roman ideals of family life, loyalty,
and truth, point clearly to a Nordic rather
than to a Mediterranean origin.
In this manner, Grant appeared to be studiously
following scientific theory.
Critics warned that Grant used uncritical
circular reasoning.
His desirable characteristics of a people
— "family life, loyalty, and truth" — were
claimed to be exclusive products of the "Nordic
race".
Thus, whenever such traits were found in a
non-Nordic culture, Grant said that they were
evidence of a Nordic influence or admixture,
rather than casting doubt on their supposed
exclusive Nordic origin.
== Reception and influence ==
By 1937, the book is said to have sold 17,000
copies in the U.S.
The book received positive reviews in the
1920s, but Grant's popularity declined in
the 1930s.
Among those who embraced the book and its
message was Adolf Hitler, who wrote to Grant
to personally thank him for writing it, referring
to the book as "my Bible."Spiro (2009) explains
its modest sales by five factors:
The book appeared when the anti-German propaganda
machine was shifting into high gear, with
images of raping nuns and bombing cathedrals.
The message was anti-democratic and anti-Christian,
which did not sit well with the patriotic
public.
Hereditarianism ran counter to the belief
in education, hard work, and "pulling oneself
up by one's bootstraps."
Immigration during the First World War declined
because ships were allocated to the war effort.
The work was categorised by the publisher
as "science" and so never had a chance at
mass popularity.Grant researched the published
scientific literature, especially in anthropology,
to support his notions of Nordic racialism.
According to Grant, Nordics were in a dire
state in the modern world, where their abandonment
of cultural values rooted in religious or
superstitious proto-racialism, they were close
to committing "race suicide" by miscegenation
and being outbred by inferior stock, which
was taking advantage of the transition.
Nordic theory was strongly embraced by the
racial hygiene movement in Germany in the
early 1920s and 1930s; however, they typically
used the term "Aryan" instead of "Nordic",
though the principal Nazi ideologist, Alfred
Rosenberg, preferred "Aryo-Nordic" or "Nordic-Atlantean".
Stephen Jay Gould described The Passing of
the Great Race as " …the most influential
tract of American scientific racism … "Grant
was involved in many debates on the discipline
of anthropology against the anthropologist
Franz Boas, who advocated cultural anthropology
in contrast to Grant's "hereditarian" branch
of physical anthropology.
Boas and his students were strongly opposed
to racialist notions, holding that any perceived
racial inequality was from social rather than
biological factors.
Versions of their debates on the relative
influence of biological and social factors
persist in contemporary anthropology.Grant
advocated restricted immigration to the United
States through limiting immigration from East
Asia and Southern Europe; he also advocated
efforts to purify the American population
though selective breeding.
He served as the vice president of the Immigration
Restriction League from 1922 to his death.
Acting as an expert on world racial data,
Grant also provided statistics for the Immigration
Act of 1924 to set the quotas on immigrants
from certain European countries.
Even after the statute was passed, Grant continued
to be irked that even a smattering of non-Nordics
were allowed to immigrate to the country each
year.
He also assisted in the passing and prosecution
of several anti-miscegenation laws, notably
the Racial Integrity Act of 1924 in the state
of Virginia, where he sought to codify his
particular version of the "one-drop rule"
into law.Grant became a part of popular culture
in 1920s America.
Author F. Scott Fitzgerald made a lightly
disguised reference to Grant in The Great
Gatsby.
Tom Buchanan was reading a book called The
Rise of the Colored Empires by "this man Goddard",
a combination of Grant and his colleague Lothrop
Stoddard.
(Grant wrote the introduction to Stoddard's
book The Rising Tide of Color Against White
World-Supremacy.)
"Everybody ought to read it", the character
explained.
"The idea is if we don't look out the white
race will be — will be utterly submerged.
It's all scientific stuff; it's been proved."
Ernest Hemingway might also have alluded to
The Passing of the Great Race in the subtitle
of his book The Torrents of Spring; A Romantic
Novel in Honor of the Passing of a Great Race.
The book was a parody of contemporary writers
and would thus be referring to them sarcastically
as a "great race".
Americans turned against Grant's ideas in
the 1930s; his book was no longer sold, and
his supporters fell away.
In Europe, however, Nordic theory was adopted
during the 1930s by the Nazis and others.
Grant's book and the genre in general was
read in Germany, but eugenicists increasingly
turned to Nazi Germany for leadership.
Heinrich Himmler's Lebensborn Society was
formed to preserve typical Nordic genes, such
as blond hair and blue eyes, by sheltering
blonde, blue-eyed women
