Archive for the ‘Reviews’ tag
Review: Galileo Goes to Jail by Ronald L. Numbers (ed.)
Ronald L. Numbers has long been at war with the war metaphor. For more than two decades, Numbers has argued that conceptualizing the relationship between religion and science as a battle between powerful opposing forces is “neither useful nor tenable.” In Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion (2009, Harvard University Press), Numbers continues his mission. For this book, Numbers presents 25 essays by noted historians debunking common “religion vs. science” myths. Audio interview
Review: Three Generations, No Imbeciles by Paul A. Lombardo
Paul A. Lombardo’s history of Buck v. Bell, Three Generations, No Imbeciles (2008. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.), is a terrific telling of case of Carrie Buck, a young woman sterilized by Virginia in 1927 in order to prevent her from having more “socially inadequate” offspring.
In 1924, supporters of a statute known as the Virginia Sterilization Act challenged the very law they helped author in hopes of gaining legal cover for their eugenic efforts. They claimed that reproduction among the “feebleminded” was a proximate threat to the body social. According to the “expert” brought in by counsel to defend the Act, Buck was the daughter of a feebleminded woman, was feebleminded herself, and had demonstrated that she was a danger to the community by bearing an illegitimate feebleminded daughter.
The case made it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In its 8-1 affirmation, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes famously opined, “Three generations of imbeciles is enough.”
Lombardo presents documentary proof that Carrie Buck and her daughter were perfectly normal, perhaps even a bit above average, and that the 1924 proceedings which led to the Supreme Court’s review were a sham, with prosecution and defense attorneys colluding to produce the desired outcome. Adding insult, Buck’s daughter, the birth of whom signaled to many that Carrie was genetically predisposed to promiscuity, was the product of an incestuous rape.
But Lombardo’s story is about much more than a poor court decision. Read the rest of this entry »
